The Steklov Determinant and Compactness of Isospectral Planar Domains

Abstract

We prove that every Steklov isospectral family of compact smooth planar domains is compact in the $C^\infty$ topology, answering an open question of Colbois, Girouard, Gordon, and Sher. The proof has two main parts. First, a trace comparison principle for Dirichlet-to-Neumann operators yields monotonicity of negative Steklov zeta values and compactness within a fixed conformal class for genus-zero flat surfaces. Second, we analyze the normalized Steklov determinant on degenerating hyperbolic surfaces with geodesic boundary. Its asymptotics are expressed in terms of shrinking boundary components and small Neumann and Dirichlet eigenvalues, which in genus zero are compared with weighted graph Laplacians. This rules out degeneration under a bound on the total hyperbolic boundary length. We finally establish this bound for planar domains by geometric non-collapse estimates.