High-energy eigenfunctions of the Laplacian on the torus and the sphere with nodal sets of complicated topology

Abstract

Let $\Sigma$ be an oriented compact hypersurface in the round sphere $\mathbb{S}^n$ or in the flat torus $\mathbb{T}^n$, $n\geq 3$. In the case of the torus, $\Sigma$ is further assumed to be contained in a contractible subset of $\mathbb{T}^n$. We show that for any sufficiently large enough odd integer $N$ there exists an eigenfunctions $\psi$ of the Laplacian on $\mathbb{S}^n$ or $\mathbb{T}^n$ satisfying $\Delta \psi=-\lambda \psi$ (with $\lambda=N(N+n-1)$ or $N^2$ on $\mathbb{S}^n$ or $\mathbb{T}^n$, respectively), and with a connected component of the nodal set of $\psi$ given by~$\Sigma$, up to an ambient diffeomorphism.