Eigenvalues of the drifted Laplacian on complete metric measure spaces (1305.4116v2)

Abstract: I In this paper, first we study a complete smooth metric measure space $(M^n,g, e^{-f}dv)$ with the ($\infty$)-Bakry-\'Emery Ricci curvature $\textrm{Ric}f\ge \frac a2g$ for some positive constant $a$. It is known that the spectrum of the drifted Laplacian $\Delta_f$ for $M$ is discrete and the first nonzero eigenvalue of $\Delta_f$ has lower bound $\frac a2$. We prove that if the lower bound $\frac a2$ is achieved with multiplicity $k\geq 1$, then $k\leq n$, $M$ is isometric to $\Sigma^{n-k}\times \mathbb{R}^k$ for some complete $(n-k)$-dimensional manifold $\Sigma$ and by passing an isometry, $(M^n,g, e^{-f}dv)$ must split off a gradient shrinking Ricci soliton $(\mathbb{R}^k, g{can}, \frac{a}{4}|t|^2)$, $t\in \mathbb{R}^k$. This result has an application to gradient shrinking Ricci solitons. Secondly, we study the drifted Laplacian $\mathcal{L}$ for properly immersed self-shrinkers in the Euclidean space $\mathbb{R}^{n+p}$, $p\geq1$ and show the discreteness of the spectrum of $\mathcal{L}$ and a logarithmic Sobolev inequality.