Maximization of the second Laplacian eigenvalue on the sphere

Abstract

We prove a sharp isoperimetric inequality for the second nonzero eigenvalue of the Laplacian on S m S^m . For S 2 S^{2} , the second nonzero eigenvalue becomes maximal as the surface degenerates to two disjoint spheres, by a result of Nadirashvili for which Petrides later gave another proof. For higher dimensional spheres, the analogous upper bound was conjectured by Girouard, Nadirashvili and Polterovich. Our method to confirm the conjecture builds on Petrides’ work and recent developments on the hyperbolic center of mass and provides also a simpler proof for S 2 S^2 .