It is remarkable that various distinct physical phenomena, such as wave propagation, heat diffusion, electron movement in quantum mechanics, oscillations of fluid in a container, can be described using the same differential operator, the Laplacian. Spectral data (i.e., eigenvalues and eigenfunctions) of the Laplacian depend in a subtle way on the geometry of the underlying object, e.g., a Euclidean domain or a Riemannian manifold, on which the operator is defined. This dependence, or, rather, the interplay between the geometry and the spectrum, is the main subject of spectral geometry. Its roots can be traced to Ernst Chladni's experiments with vibrating plates, Lord Rayleigh's theory of sound, and Mark Kac's celebrated question “Can one hear the shape of a drum?” In the second half of the twentieth century spectral geometry emerged as a separate branch of geometric analysis. Nowadays it is a rapidly developing area of mathematics, with close connections to other fields, such as differential geometry, mathematical physics, partial differential equations, number theory, dynamical systems, and numerical analysis. This book can be used for a graduate or an advanced undergraduate course on spectral geometry, starting from the basics but at the same time covering some of the exciting recent developments which can be explained without too many prerequisites.

A co-publication of the AMS and Centre de Recherches Mathématiques The book is a collection of lecture notes and survey papers based on the mini-courses given by leading experts at the 2015 Séminaire de Mathématiques Supérieures on Geometric and Computational Spectral Theory, held from June 15–26, 2015, at the Centre de Recherches Mathématiques, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Quebec, Canada. The volume covers a broad variety of topics in spectral theory, highlighting its connections to differential geometry, mathematical physics and numerical analysis, bringing together the theoretical and computational approaches to spectral theory, and emphasizing the interplay between the two.

Most polynomial growth on every half-space Re (z) ::::: c. Moreover, Op(t) depends holomorphically on t for Re t> O. General references for much of the material on the derivation of spectral functions, asymptotic expansions and analytic properties of spectral functions are [A-P-S] and [Sh], especially Chapter 2. To study the spectral functions and their relation to the geometry and topology of X, one could, for example, take the natural associated parabolic problem as a starting point. That is, consider the 'heat equation': (%t + p) u(x, t) = 0 { u(x, O) = Uo(x), tP which is solved by means of the (heat) semi group V(t) = e- ; namely, u(·, t) = V(t)uoU· Assuming that V(t) is of trace class (which is guaranteed, for instance, if P has a positive principal symbol), it has a Schwartz kernel K E COO(X x X x Rt, E* ®E), locally given by 00 K(x, y; t) = L>-IAk(~k ® 'Pk)(X, y), k=O for a complete set of orthonormal eigensections 'Pk E COO(E). Taking the trace, we then obtain: 00 tA Op(t) = trace(V(t)) = 2::>- k. k=O Now, using, e. g., the Dunford calculus formula (where C is a suitable curve around a(P)) as a starting point and the standard for malism of pseudodifferential operators, one easily derives asymptotic expansions for the spectral functions, in this case for Op.

In recent years, increasingly complex methods have been brought into play in the treatment of geometric and topological problems for partial differential operators on manifolds. This collection of papers, resulting from a Workshop on Spectral Geometry of Manifolds with Boundary and Decomposition of Manifolds, provides a broad picture of these methods with new results. Subjects in the book cover a wide variety of topics, from recent advances in index theory and the more general boundary, to applications of those invariants in geometry, topology, and physics. Papers are grouped into four parts: Part I gives an overview of the subject from various points of view. Part II deals with spectral invariants, such as geometric and topological questions. Part IV deals specifically with problems on manifolds with singularities. The book is suitable for graduate students and researchers interested in spectral problems in geometry.

This open access book gives a systematic introduction into the spectral theory of differential operators on metric graphs. Main focus is on the fundamental relations between the spectrum and the geometry of the underlying graph. The book has two central themes: the trace formula and inverse problems. The trace formula is relating the spectrum to the set of periodic orbits and is comparable to the celebrated Selberg and Chazarain-Duistermaat-Guillemin-Melrose trace formulas. Unexpectedly this formula allows one to construct non-trivial crystalline measures and Fourier quasicrystals solving one of the long-standing problems in Fourier analysis. The remarkable story of this mathematical odyssey is presented in the first part of the book. To solve the inverse problem for Schrödinger operators on metric graphs the magnetic boundary control method is introduced. Spectral data depending on the magnetic flux allow one to solve the inverse problem in full generality, this means to reconstruct not only the potential on a given graph, but also the underlying graph itself and the vertex conditions. The book provides an excellent example of recent studies where the interplay between different fields like operator theory, algebraic geometry and number theory, leads to unexpected and sound mathematical results. The book is thought as a graduate course book where every chapter is suitable for a separate lecture and includes problems for home studies. Numerous illuminating examples make it easier to understand new concepts and develop the necessary intuition for further studies.

The aim of Spectral Geometry of Partial Differential Operators is to provide a basic and self-contained introduction to the ideas underpinning spectral geometric inequalities arising in the theory of partial differential equations. Historically, one of the first inequalities of the spectral geometry was the minimization problem of the first eigenvalue of the Dirichlet Laplacian. Nowadays, this type of inequalities of spectral geometry have expanded to many other cases with number of applications in physics and other sciences. The main reason why the results are useful, beyond the intrinsic interest of geometric extremum problems, is that they produce a priori bounds for spectral invariants of (partial differential) operators on arbitrary domains. Features: Collects the ideas underpinning the inequalities of the spectral geometry, in both self-adjoint and non-self-adjoint operator theory, in a way accessible by anyone with a basic level of understanding of linear differential operators Aimed at theoretical as well as applied mathematicians, from a wide range of scientific fields, including acoustics, astronomy, MEMS, and other physical sciences Provides a step-by-step guide to the techniques of non-self-adjoint partial differential operators, and for the applications of such methods. Provides a self-contained coverage of the traditional and modern theories of linear partial differential operators, and does not require a previous background in operator theory.

Inverse scattering problems are a vital subject for both theoretical and experimental studies and remain an active field of research in applied mathematics. This book provides a detailed presentation of typical setup of inverse scattering problems for time-harmonic acoustic, electromagnetic and elastic waves. Moreover, it provides systematical and in-depth discussion on an important class of geometrical inverse scattering problems, where the inverse problem aims at recovering the shape and location of a scatterer independent of its medium properties. Readers of this book will be exposed to a unified framework for analyzing a variety of geometrical inverse scattering problems from a spectral geometric perspective. This book contains both overviews of classical results and update-to-date information on latest developments from both a practical and theoretical point of view. It can be used as an advanced graduate textbook in universities or as a reference source for researchers in acquiring the state-of-the-art results in inverse scattering theory and their potential applications.

This volume contains the proceedings of the International Conference on Spectral Geometry, held July 19-23, 2010, at Dartmouth College, Dartmouth, New Hampshire. Eigenvalue problems involving the Laplace operator on manifolds have proven to be a consistently fertile area of geometric analysis with deep connections to number theory, physics, and applied mathematics. Key questions include the measures to which eigenfunctions of the Laplacian on a Riemannian manifold condense in the limit of large eigenvalue, and the extent to which the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of a manifold encode its geometry. In this volume, research and expository articles, including those of the plenary speakers Peter Sarnak and Victor Guillemin, address the flurry of recent progress in such areas as quantum unique ergodicity, isospectrality, semiclassical measures, the geometry of nodal lines of eigenfunctions, methods of numerical computation, and spectra of quantum graphs. This volume also contains mini-courses on spectral theory for hyperbolic surfaces, semiclassical analysis, and orbifold spectral geometry that prepared the participants, especially graduate students and young researchers, for conference lectures.

A clear, concise and up-to-date introduction to the theory of the Dirac operator and its wide range of applications in theoretical physics for graduate students and researchers.