Abstract
There are two themes in the present paper. The first one is spelled out in the title, and is inspired by an attempt to find an analogue of Hersch-Yang-Yau estimate for
lambd
a
1
of surfaces in symplectic category. In particular we prove that every split symplectic manifold
T
4
timesM
admits a compatible Riemannian metric whose first eigenvalue is arbitrary large. On the other hand for Kahler metrics compatible with a given integral symplectic form an upper bound for
lambd
a
1
does exist. The second theme is the study of Hamiltonian symplectic fibrations over the 2-sphere. We construct a numerical invariant called the size of a fibration which arises as the solution of certain variational problems closely related to Hofer's geometry, K-area and coupling. In some examples it can be computed with the use of Gromov-Witten invariants. The link between these two themes is given by an observation that the first eigenvalue of a Riemannian metric compatible with a symplectic fibration admits a universal upper bound in terms of the size.