  The SCHOK bound states that the number of marginal deformations of certain
two-dimensional conformal field theories is bounded linearly from above by the
number of relevant operators. In conformal field theories defined via sigma
models into Calabi-Yau manifolds, relevant operators can be estimated, in the
point-particle approximation, by the low-lying spectrum of the scalar Laplacian
on the manifold. In the strict large volume limit, the standard asymptotic
expansion of Weyl and Minakshisundaram-Pleijel diverges with the higher-order
curvature invariants. We propose that it would be sufficient to find an a
priori uniform bound on the trace of the heat kernel for large but finite
volume. As a first step in this direction, we then study the heat trace
asymptotics, as well as the actual spectrum of the scalar Laplacian, in the
vicinity of a conifold singularity. The eigenfunctions can be written in terms
of confluent Heun functions, the analysis of which gives evidence that regions
of large curvature will not prevent the existence of a bound of this type. This
is also in line with general mathematical expectations about spectral
continuity for manifolds with conical singularities. A sharper version of our
results could, in combination with the SCHOK bound, provide a basis for a
global restriction on the dimension of the moduli space of Calabi-Yau
manifolds.
