Inequalities for lower order eigenvalues of second order elliptic operators in divergence form on Riemannian manifolds

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the Dirichlet eigenvalue problems of second order elliptic operators in divergence form on bounded domains of complete Riemannian manifolds. We discuss the cases of submanifolds immersed in a Euclidean space, Riemannian manifolds admitting spherical eigenmaps, and Riemannian manifolds which admit l functions \({f_\alpha : M \longrightarrow \mathbb{R}}\) such that \({\langle \nabla f_\alpha, \nabla f_\beta \rangle = \delta_{\alpha \beta}}\) and Δfα = 0, where ∇ is the gradient operator. Some inequalities for lower order eigenvalues of these problems are established. As applications of these results, we obtain some universal inequalities for lower order eigenvalues of the Dirichlet Laplacian problem. In particular, the universal inequality for eigenvalues of the Laplacian on a unit sphere is optimal.