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Isospectral
In mathematics, two linear operators are called isospectral or cospectral if they have the same spectrum. Roughly speaking, they are supposed to have the same sets of eigenvalues, when those are counted with multiplicity.
The theory of isospectral operators is markedly different depending on whether the space is finite or infinite dimensional. In finite-dimensions, one essentially deals with square matrices.
In infinite dimensions, the spectrum need not consist solely of isolated eigenvalues. However, the case of a compact operator on a Hilbert space (or Banach space) is still tractable, since the eigenvalues are at most countable with at most a single limit point λ = 0. The most studied isospectral problem in infinite dimensions is that of the Laplace operator on a domain in R2. Two such domains are called isospectral if their Laplacians are isospectral. The problem of inferring the geometrical properties of a domain from the spectrum of its Laplacian is often known as hearing the shape of a drum.
In the case of operators on finite-dimensional vector spaces, for complex square matrices, the relation of being isospectral for two diagonalizable matrices is just similarity. This doesn't however reduce completely the interest of the concept, since we can have an isospectral family of matrices of shape A(t) = M(t)−1AM(t) depending on a parameter t in a complicated way. This is an evolution of a matrix that happens inside one similarity class.
A fundamental insight in soliton theory was that the infinitesimal analogue of that equation, namely
was behind the conservation laws that were responsible for keeping solitons from dissipating. That is, the preservation of spectrum was an interpretation of the conservation mechanism. The identification of so-called Lax pairs (P,L) giving rise to analogous equations, by Peter Lax, showed how linear machinery could explain the non-linear behaviour.
Two closed Riemannian manifolds are said to be isospectral if the eigenvalues of their Laplace–Beltrami operator (Laplacians), counted multiplicities, coincide. One of fundamental problems in spectral geometry is to ask to what extent the eigenvalues determine the geometry of a given manifold.
There are many examples of isospectral manifolds which are not isometric. The first example was given in 1964 by John Milnor. He constructed a pair of flat tori of 16 dimension, using arithmetic lattices first studied by Ernst Witt. After this example, many isospectral pairs in dimension two and higher were constructed (for instance, by M. F. Vignéras, A. Ikeda, H. Urakawa, C. Gordon). In particular Vignéras (1980), based on the Selberg trace formula for PSL(2,R) and PSL(2,C), constructed examples of isospectral, non-isometric closed hyperbolic 2-manifolds and 3-manifolds as quotients of hyperbolic 2-space and 3-space by arithmetic subgroups, constructed using quaternion algebras associated with quadratic extensions of the rationals by class field theory. In this case Selberg's trace formula shows that the spectrum of the Laplacian fully determines the length spectrum[citation needed], the set of lengths of closed geodesics in each free homotopy class, along with the twist along the geodesic in the 3-dimensional case.
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Isospectral
In mathematics, two linear operators are called isospectral or cospectral if they have the same spectrum. Roughly speaking, they are supposed to have the same sets of eigenvalues, when those are counted with multiplicity.
The theory of isospectral operators is markedly different depending on whether the space is finite or infinite dimensional. In finite-dimensions, one essentially deals with square matrices.
In infinite dimensions, the spectrum need not consist solely of isolated eigenvalues. However, the case of a compact operator on a Hilbert space (or Banach space) is still tractable, since the eigenvalues are at most countable with at most a single limit point λ = 0. The most studied isospectral problem in infinite dimensions is that of the Laplace operator on a domain in R2. Two such domains are called isospectral if their Laplacians are isospectral. The problem of inferring the geometrical properties of a domain from the spectrum of its Laplacian is often known as hearing the shape of a drum.
In the case of operators on finite-dimensional vector spaces, for complex square matrices, the relation of being isospectral for two diagonalizable matrices is just similarity. This doesn't however reduce completely the interest of the concept, since we can have an isospectral family of matrices of shape A(t) = M(t)−1AM(t) depending on a parameter t in a complicated way. This is an evolution of a matrix that happens inside one similarity class.
A fundamental insight in soliton theory was that the infinitesimal analogue of that equation, namely
was behind the conservation laws that were responsible for keeping solitons from dissipating. That is, the preservation of spectrum was an interpretation of the conservation mechanism. The identification of so-called Lax pairs (P,L) giving rise to analogous equations, by Peter Lax, showed how linear machinery could explain the non-linear behaviour.
Two closed Riemannian manifolds are said to be isospectral if the eigenvalues of their Laplace–Beltrami operator (Laplacians), counted multiplicities, coincide. One of fundamental problems in spectral geometry is to ask to what extent the eigenvalues determine the geometry of a given manifold.
There are many examples of isospectral manifolds which are not isometric. The first example was given in 1964 by John Milnor. He constructed a pair of flat tori of 16 dimension, using arithmetic lattices first studied by Ernst Witt. After this example, many isospectral pairs in dimension two and higher were constructed (for instance, by M. F. Vignéras, A. Ikeda, H. Urakawa, C. Gordon). In particular Vignéras (1980), based on the Selberg trace formula for PSL(2,R) and PSL(2,C), constructed examples of isospectral, non-isometric closed hyperbolic 2-manifolds and 3-manifolds as quotients of hyperbolic 2-space and 3-space by arithmetic subgroups, constructed using quaternion algebras associated with quadratic extensions of the rationals by class field theory. In this case Selberg's trace formula shows that the spectrum of the Laplacian fully determines the length spectrum[citation needed], the set of lengths of closed geodesics in each free homotopy class, along with the twist along the geodesic in the 3-dimensional case.