Fuglede's spectral set conjecture for convex polytopes

Abstract

Let $Ω$ be a convex polytope in $\mathbb{R}^d$. We say that $Ω$ is spectral if the space $L^2(Ω)$ admits an orthogonal basis consisting of exponential functions. There is a conjecture, which goes back to Fuglede (1974), that $Ω$ is spectral if and only if it can tile the space by translations. It is known that if $Ω$ tiles then it is spectral, but the converse was proved only in dimension $d=2$, by Iosevich, Katz and Tao. By a result due to Kolountzakis, if a convex polytope $Ω\subset \mathbb{R}^d$ is spectral, then it must be centrally symmetric. We prove that also all the facets of $Ω$ are centrally symmetric. These conditions are necessary for $Ω$ to tile by translations. We also develop an approach which allows us to prove that in dimension $d=3$, any spectral convex polytope $Ω$ indeed tiles by translations. Thus we obtain that Fuglede's conjecture is true for convex polytopes in $\mathbb{R}^3$.

To appear in Analysis & PDE