An inverse problem on eigenfunction triple products

Abstract

On a connected closed smooth Riemannian manifold, the algebraic structure of the Laplace eigenfunctions, as described by eigenfunction triple products, uniquely determines the geometry. We refine this correspondence by introducing the notion of an $N$-product eigenbasis, which consists of eigenfunctions whose pairwise products may be written as linear combinations of at most $N$ basis elements. We prove that a manifold admits a $2$-product eigenbasis if and only if it is a flat torus. We also prove an analogous result for Laplace eigenvectors of bounded-degree graphs.