The lowest eigenvalue of the Schrodinger operator $-Delta+mathcal{V}$ on a compact Riemannian manifold without boundary is studied. We focus on the particularly subtle case of a sign changing potential with positive average.
Let $mathcal{A}_0$ and $mathcal{A}_1$ be two self-adjoint Fredholm Dirac-type operators defined on two non-compact manifolds. If they coincide at infinity so that the relative heat operator is trace-class, one can define their relative eta function a
s in the compact case. The regular value of this function at the zero point, which we call the relative eta invariant of $mathcal{A}_0$ and $mathcal{A}_1$, is a generalization of the eta invariant to non-compact situation. We study its variation formula and gluing law. In particular, under certain conditions, we show that this relative eta invariant coincides with the relative eta invariant that we previously defined using APS index of strongly Callias-type operators.
We study the heat trace for both the drifting Laplacian as well as Schrodinger operators on compact Riemannian manifolds. In the case of a finite regularity potential or weight function, we prove the existence of a partial (six term) asymptotic expan
sion of the heat trace for small times as well as a suitable remainder estimate. We also demonstrate that the more precise asymptotic behavior of the remainder is determined by and conversely distinguishes higher (Sobolev) regularity on the potential or weight function. In the case of a smooth weight function, we determine the full asymptotic expansion of the heat trace for the drifting Laplacian for small times. We then use the heat trace to study the asymptotics of the eigenvalue counting function. In both cases the Weyl law coincides with the Weyl law for the Riemannian manifold with the standard Laplace-Beltrami operator. We conclude by demonstrating isospectrality results for the drifting Laplacian on compact manifolds.
Adapting the method of Andrews-Clutterbuck we prove an eigenvalue gap theorem for a class of non symmetric second order linear elliptic operators on a convex domain in euclidean space. The class of operators includes the Bakry-Emery laplacian with po
tential and any operator with second order term the laplacian whose first order terms have coefficients with compact support in the open domain. The eigenvalue gap is bounded below by the gap of an associated Sturm-Liouville problem on a closed interval.
We give a new estimate on the lower bound of the first Dirichlet eigenvalue of a compact Riemannian manifold with negative lower bound of Ricci curvature and provide a solution for a conjecture of H. C. Yang.
We demonstrate lower bounds for the eigenvalues of compact Bakry-Emery manifolds with and without boundary. The lower bounds for the first eigenvalue rely on a generalised maximum principle which allows gradient estimates in the Riemannian setting to
be directly applied to the Bakry-Emery setting. Lower bounds for all eigenvalues are demonstrated using heat kernel estimates and a suitable Sobolev inequality.