Dirichlet eigenfunctions on the cube, sharpening the Courant nodal inequality

This paper is devoted to the refine analysis of Courant's theorem for the Dirichlet Laplacian. Many papers (and some of them quite recent) have investigated in which cases this inequality in Courant's theorem is an equality: Pleijel, Helffer--Hoffmann-Ostenhof--Terracini, Helffer--Hoffmann-Ostenhof, B\'erard-Helffer, Helffer--Persson-Sundqvist, L\'ena, Leydold. All these results were devoted to $(2D)$-cases in open sets in $\mathbb R^2$ or in surfaces like $\mathbb S^2$ or $\mathbb T^2$. The aim of the current paper is to look for analogous results for domains in $\mathbb{R}^3$ and, as $\AA.$Pleijel was suggesting in his 1956 founding paper, for the simplest case of the cube. More precisely, we will prove that the only eigenvalues of the Dirichlet Laplacian which are Courant sharp are the two first eigenvalues

Where to place a spherical obstacle so as to maximize the second Dirichlet eigenvalue

We prove that among all doubly connected domains of $\mathbb{R}^n$ bounded by two spheres of given radii, the second eigenvalue of the Dirichlet Laplacian achieves its maximum when the spheres are concentric (spherical shell). The corresponding result for the first eigenvalue has been established by Hersch in dimension 2, and by Harrell, Kr\"oger and Kurata and Kesavan in any dimension. We also prove that the same result remains valid when the ambient space $\mathbb{R}^n$ is replaced by the standard sphere $\mathbb{S}^n$ or the hyperbolic space $\mathbb{H}^n$ .Comment: To appear in Communications in Pure and Applied Analysi

Extremal first Dirichlet eigenvalue of doubly connected plane domains and dihedral symmetry

We deal with the following eigenvalue optimization problem: Given a bounded domain $D\subset \R^2$, how to place an obstacle $B$ of fixed shape within $D$ so as to maximize or minimize the fundamental eigenvalue $\lambda_1$ of the Dirichlet Laplacian on $D\setminus B$. This means that we want to extremize the function $\rho\mapsto \lambda_1(D\setminus \rho (B))$, where $\rho$ runs over the set of rigid motions such that $\rho (B)\subset D$. We answer this problem in the case where both $D$ and $B$ are invariant under the action of a dihedral group $\mathbb{D}_n$, $n\ge2$, and where the distance from the origin to the boundary is monotonous as a function of the argument between two axes of symmetry. The extremal configurations correspond to the cases where the axes of symmetry of $B$ coincide with those of $D$.Comment: To appear in SIAM Journal on Mathematical Analysi

Artistic Identities and Professional Strategies : Francophone Musicians in France and Britain

Funding This work was supported by Arts and Humanities Research Council [grant number AH/E508628/1] and European Commission [grant number HPSE-CT-2002-00133].Peer reviewedPostprin