The “hot spots” conjecture for domains with two axes of symmetry

Abstract

Consider a Neumann eigenfunction with lowest nonzero eigenvalue of a convex planar domain with two axes of symmetry. We show that the maximum and minimum of the eigenfunction are achieved at points on the boundary only. We deduce J. Rauch’s “hot spots” conjecture: if the initial temperature distribution is not orthogonal to the first nonzero eigenspace, then the point at which the temperature achieves its maximum tends to the boundary. This was already proved by Bañuelos and Burdzy in the case in which the eigenspace is one dimensional. We introduce here a new technique based on deformations of the domain that applies to the case of multiple eigenvalues.