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Do homological eigenvalues exhaust the spectrum for p in (1,∞)?

Determine whether, for p in (1,∞), every p-Laplacian eigenvalue is a homological critical value of the p-Rayleigh quotient; equivalently, decide whether non-homological eigenvalues can occur in this regime.

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Background

Homological eigenvalues are defined via changes in the homology of sublevel sets of the Rayleigh quotient. In finite dimensions, homological critical values are classical critical values, and for p=1 there are known examples of eigenvalues that are not homological.

Whether the homological spectrum matches the full spectrum for p in (1,∞) remains unsettled. An affirmative answer would strongly constrain the structure of nonlinear spectra; a negative answer would exhibit fundamentally non-homological eigenvalues in the nonlinear discrete setting.

References

For $p\in(1,\infty)$, it is an open problem the existence or not of eigenvalues that are not homological.

Nonlinear spectral graph theory (2504.03566 - Deidda et al., 4 Apr 2025) in Subsubsection “Homological eigenvalues” (within Subsection 3.2, The variational spectrum)