Spectral pinching in positive Ricci curvature (Q878320)

The paper, part of the author's doctoral thesis, deals with \( n \)-dimensional compact Riemannian manifolds \( (M,g) \) of positive Ricci curvature, normalized by \( \text{Ric} \geq (n-1) g \) (such that the unit sphere \( {\mathbb S}^{n} \) falls in this class in the equality case). The result is a theorem on \textit{stability} or \textit{pinching}, namely an answer to the question: How far from a unit sphere is \( (M,g) \) if the \( k \)-th eigenvalue \( \lambda_{k} > 0 \) of the Laplace/Beltrami operator is near \( n \) (for fixed \( k \in \{1,\ldots,n+1\} \))? Observe that the first positive eigenvalue of \( {\mathbb S}^{n} \) has multiplicity \( n+1 \). The proximity of Riemannian manifolds is measured in the sense of the Gromov/Hausdorff distance \( d_{GH} \). In fact, an equivalence is proved between the relations `\( \lambda_{k} \) is near \( n \)' and `\( M \) contains a subset \( A_{k} \) such that \( d_{GH}(M,{\mathbb S}^{k-1}) \) is near \( 0 \)' (with due precision of these notions). Also a third type of equivalence is included, concerning pairs of points with certain distance properties. The main idea is to establish the approximation to a sphere by the map \( \Phi := (f_{1},\dots,f_{k})(f_{1}^{2}+\cdots+ f_{k}^{2})^{-1/2} \), where the \( f_{i} \) are eigenfunctions of the \( \lambda_{i} \), normalized appropriately (in case \( k \geq 2 \)). The subject belongs to an important stream, the spectral geometry of Riemannian manifolds, with its relations to global invariants like volume, diameter, length spectrum, etc. The special case \( k = 1 \) has already been treated by \textit{S.-Y. Cheng}, [Math. Z. 143, 289--297 (1975; Zbl 0329.53035)], and \textit{C. B. Croke} [Invent. Math. 68, 253--256 (1982; Zbl 0505.53018)]. For \( k = n+1 \), one can even take \( A_{n+1} = M \), as formerly proved by \textit{P. Petersen} [Invent. Math. 138, 1--21 (1999; Zbl 0988.53011)], and \textit{T. H. Colding} [Invent. Math. 124, 193--214 (1996; Zbl 0871.53028)], with the analogous \( \Phi \) (here combined with essentially different arguments).