GEOMETRY AND SPECTRA OF COMPACT RIEMANN SURFACES

This classic monograph is a self-contained introduction to the geometry of Riemann surfaces of constant curvature -1 and their length and eigenvalue spectra. It focuses on two subjects: the geometric theory of compact Riemann surfaces of genus greater than one, and the relationship of the Laplace operator with the geometry of such surfaces. The first part of the book is written in textbook form at the graduate level, with only minimal requisites in either differential geometry or complex Riemann surface theory. The second part of the book is a self-contained introduction to the spectrum of the Laplacian based on the heat equation. Later chapters deal with recent developments on isospectrality, Sunada’s construction, a simplified proof of Wolpert’s theorem, and an estimate of the number of pairwise isospectral non-isometric examples which depends only on genus. Researchers and graduate students interested in compact Riemann surfaces will find this book a useful reference.