Transplantation and Jacobians of Sunada isospectral Riemann surfaces

We consider relations among the Jacobians of isospectral compact Riemann surfaces constructed using Sunada's theorem. We use a simple algebraic formulation of “transplantation” of holomorphic 1-forms and singular 1-cycles to obtain two main results. First, we obtain a geometric proof of a result of Prasad and Rajan that Sunada isospectral Riemann surfaces have isogenous Jacobians. Second, we determine a relationship (weaker than isogeny) that holds among the Jacobians of Sunada isospectral Riemann surfaces when the Jacobians' extra structure as principally polarized abelian varieties is taken into account. We also show all Sunada isospectral manifolds have isomorphic real cohomology algebras. Finally, we exhibit transplantation of cycles explicitly in a concrete example of a pair of isospectral Riemann surfaces constructed by Brooks and Tse.