English

Resolving isospectral "drums" by counting nodal domains

Chaotic Dynamics 2009-11-11 v1 Mathematical Physics math.MP

Abstract

Several types of systems were put forward during the past decades to show that there exist {\it isospectral} systems which are {\it metrically} different. One important class consists of Laplace Beltrami operators for pairs of flat tori in Rn\mathbb{R}^n with n4n\geq 4. We propose that the spectral ambiguity can be resolved by comparing the nodal sequences (the numbers of nodal domains of eigenfunctions, arranged by increasing eigenvalues). In the case of isospectral flat tori in four dimensions - where a 4-parameters family of isospectral pairs is known- we provide heuristic arguments supported by numerical simulations to support the conjecture that the isospectrality is resolved by the nodal count. Thus - one can {\it count} the shape of a drum (if it is designed as a flat torus in four dimensions...).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.nlin/0504050,
  title  = {Resolving isospectral "drums" by counting nodal domains},
  author = {Sven Gnutzmann and Uzy Smilansky and Niels Sondergaard},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:nlin/0504050},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

13 pages, 3 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-22T18:13:46.552Z