English

Pólya's Conjecture for the Neumann Laplacian on Euclidean Balls

Spectral Theory 2026-07-28 v1 Analysis of PDEs Classical Analysis and ODEs

Abstract

We prove P\'olya's conjectured lower bound for the Neumann counting function of every Euclidean ball. If d2d\ge2, R>0R>0, and E0E\ge0, then \begin{equation*} N_{B_R^d}^{<}(E) \ge \frac{\omega_d}{(2\pi)^d}|B_R^d|E^{d/2} = \frac{(R\sqrt E)^d}{2^d\Gamma(\frac d2+1)^2}. \end{equation*} The radial boundary condition in dimensions d3d\ge3 is a Dini condition, not a derivative-zero condition. A strict Robin comparison first reduces it to a Bessel phase estimate. Variational bounds handle low frequencies, while estimates based on finitely many radial levels and on beta moments cover the intermediate range uniformly in the dimension. The remaining high-frequency estimate is explicit. The finite rational calculations form part of the proof appendix.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.25958,
  title  = {Pólya's Conjecture for the Neumann Laplacian on Euclidean Balls},
  author = {Yutian Li},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.25958},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

86 pages, including 39 pages of appendix