A sharp bound for the ratio of the first two Dirichlet eigenvalues of a domain in a hemisphere of 𝕊ⁿ

DOI10.1090/S0002-9947-00-02605-2zbMATH Open0981.53023arXivmath/0008088MaRDI QIDQ4523178FDOQ4523178

Authors: Mark S. Ashbaugh, Rafael D. Benguria

Publication date: 8 January 2001

Published in: Transactions of the American Mathematical Society (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: For a domain

O m e g a

contained in a hemisphere of the

n

-dimensional sphere

S S^{n}

we prove the optimal result

l a m b d a_{2} / l a m b d a_{1} (O m e g a) l e l a m b d a_{2} / l a m b d a_{1} (O m e g a^{s t a r})

for the ratio of its first two Dirichlet eigenvalues where

O m e g a^{s t a r}

, the symmetric rearrangement of

O m e g a

in

S S^{n}

, is a geodesic ball in

S S^{n}

having the same

n

-volume as

O m e g a

. We also show that

l a m b d a_{2} / l a m b d a_{1}

for geodesic balls of geodesic radius

h e t a_{1}

less than or equal to

p i / 2

is an increasing function of

h e t a_{1}

which runs between the value

(j_{n / 2, 1} / j_{n / 2 - 1, 1})^{2}

for

h e t a_{1} = 0

(this is the Euclidean value) and

2 (n + 1) / n

for

h e t a_{1} = p i / 2

. Here

j_{u, k}

denotes the

k^{t h}

positive zero of the Bessel function

J_{u} (t)

. This result generalizes the Payne-P'{o}lya-Weinberger conjecture, which applies to bounded domains in Euclidean space and which we had proved earlier. Our method makes use of symmetric rearrangement of functions and various technical properties of special functions. We also prove that among all domains contained in a hemisphere of