Conformal volume and eigenvalue problems

Abstract

We prove inequalities for Laplace eigenvalues on Riemannian manifolds generalising to higher eigenvalues two classical inequalities for the first Laplace eigenvalue - the inequality in terms of the $L^2$-norm of mean curvature, due to Reilly in 1977, and the inequality in terms of conformal volume, due to Li and Yau in 1982, and El Soufi and Ilias in 1986. We also obtain bounds for the number of negative eigenvalues of Schr\"odinger operators, and in particular, index bounds for minimal hypersurfaces in spheres.