Sharp Interpolation Inequalities on the Sphere: New Methods and Consequences

This paper is devoted to various considerations on a family of sharp interpolation inequalities on the sphere, which in dimension greater than 1 interpolate between Poincaré, logarithmic Sobolev and critical Sobolev (Onofri in dimension two) inequalities. The connection between optimal constants and spectral properties of the Laplace-Beltrami operator on the sphere is emphasized. The authors address a series of related observations and give proofs based on symmetrization and the ultraspherical setting.