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A typo in the title is corrected.
user64494
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What's wrong with the Courant nodal domain theorem?

The Courant nodal domain theorem (for Neumann boundary conditions) says that the $n$-th eigenfunction has at most $n$ nodal domains (connected components where the eigenfunction has the same sign. However, Chavel in Eigenvalues in Riemannian Geometry seems to point out (P23) that Divergence theorem is used, so the regularity of the nodal set matters, whose proof by Cheng in dimension $\ge 3$ is incomplete. My question is: does it really affect the proof of the nodal domain theorem? More generally, does it affect the application of divergence theorem to a nodal domain (say to functions that are restrictions of $C^{\infty}(\mathbb R^n)$.

Fan Zheng
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