Monotonicity of the first Dirichlet eigenvalue of the Laplacian on manifolds of nonpositive curvature

Abstract

Let $(M,g)$ be a complete manifold of nonpositive scalar curvature, let $\Omega\subset M$ be a suitable domain, and let $\lambda(\Omega)$ be the first Dirichlet eigenvalue of the Laplace-Beltrami operator on $\Omega$. We prove several bounds for the rate of decrease of $\lambda(\Omega)$ and $\Omega$ increases, and a result comparing the rate of decrease of $\lambda$ before and after a conformal diffeomorphism. Along the way, we prove a reverse-Holder inequality for the first eigenfunction, which generalizes results of Chiti to the monifold setting and may be of independent interest