A sharp upper bound on the spectral gap for graphene quantum dots

Abstract: The main result of this paper is a sharp upper bound on the first positive eigenvalue of Dirac operators in two dimensional simply connected $C^3$-domains with infinite mass boundary conditions. This bound is given in terms of a conformal variation, explicit geometric quantities and of the first eigenvalue for the disk. Its proof relies on the min-max principle applied to the squares of these Dirac operators. A suitable test function is constructed by means of a conformal map. This general upper bound involves the norm of the derivative of the underlying conformal map in the Hardy space $\mathcal{H}^2(\mathbb{D})$. Then, we apply known estimates of this norm for convex and for nearly circular, star-shaped domains in order to get explicit geometric upper bounds on the eigenvalue. These bounds can be re-interpreted as reverse Faber-Krahn-type inequalities under adequate geometric constraints.