Rigidity theorems for the area widths of Riemannian manifolds

The volume spectrum of a compact Riemannian manifold is a sequence of critical values for the area functional, defined in analogy with the Laplace spectrum by Gromov. In this paper we prove that the canonical metric on the two-dimensional projective plane is determined modulo isometries by its volume spectrum. We also prove that the surface Zoll metrics on the three-dimensional sphere are characterized by the equality of the spherical area widths. These widths generalize to the surface case the Lusternik-Schnirelmann lengths of closed geodesics. We prove a new sharp area systolic inequality for metrics on the three-dimensional projective space.