Geometry of nodal sets of Laplace eigenfunctions

Series
School of Mathematics Colloquium
Time
Thursday, September 17, 2020 - 11:00am for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89107379948
Speaker
Alexander Logunov – Princeton University – alogunov@princeton.eduhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Logunov_(mathematician)?wprov=sfti1
Organizer
Michael Lacey

We will discuss geometrical and analytic properties of zero sets of harmonic functions and eigenfunctions of the Laplace operator. For harmonic functions on the plane there is an interestingrelation between local length of the zero set and the growth of harmonic functions. The larger the zero set is, the faster the growth of harmonic function should be and vice versa. Zero sets of Laplace eigenfunctions on surfaces are unions of smooth curves with equiangular intersections. The topology of the zero set could be quite complicated, but Yau conjectured that the total length of the zero set is comparable to the square root of the eigenvalue for all eigenfunctions. We will start with open questions about spherical harmonics and explain some methods to study nodal sets, which are zero sets of solutions of elliptic PDE. 

Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89107379948