Conformal upper bounds for the eigenvalues of the $p$-Laplacian

Abstract

In this note we present upper bounds for the variational eigenvalues of the $p$-Laplacian on smooth domains of complete $n$-dimensional Riemannian manifolds and Neumann boundary conditions, and on compact (boundaryless) Riemannian manifolds. In particular, we provide upper bounds in the conformal class of a given manifold $(M,g)$ for $1<p\leq n$, and upper bounds for all $p>1$ when we fix a metric $g$. To do so, we use a metric approach for the construction of suitable test functions for the variational characterization of the eigenvalues. The upper bounds agree with the well-known asymptotic estimate of the eigenvalues due to Friedlander. We also present upper bounds for the variational eigenvalues on hypersurfaces bounding smooth domains in a Riemannian manifold in terms of the isoperimetric ratio.