In this paper we investigate the nature of stationary points of functionals on the space of Riemannian metrics on a smooth compact manifold. Special cases are spectral invariants associated with Laplace or Dirac operators such as functional determinants, and the total Q-curvature. When the functional is invariant under conformal changes of the metric, and the manifold is the standard n-sphere, we apply methods from representation theory to give a universal form of the Hessian of the functional at a stationary point. This reveals a very strong rigidity in the local structure of any such functional. As a corollary this gives a new proof of the results of K. Okikiolu (Ann. Math., 2001) on local maxima and minima for the determinant of the conformal Laplacian, and we obtain results of the same type in general examples.
We show rigidity of the first conformal Steklov eigenvalue on annuli and Möbius bands. The proof relies, among others, on uniqueness results due to Fraser--Schoen, a compactness theorem of the second named author, and recent work of the authors on asymptotic control of Steklov eigenvalues in glueing constructions.
The classical Liouville Theorem on conformal transformations determines local conformal transformations on the Euclidean space of dimension $\geq 3$. Its natural adaptation to the general framework of Riemannian structures is the 2-rigidity of conformal transformations, that is such a transformation is fully determined by its 2-jet at any point. We prove here a similar rigidity for generalized conformal structures defined by giving a one parameter family of metrics (instead of scalar multiples of a given one) on each tangent space.
In this paper we prove that under a lower bound on the Ricci curvature and an asymptotic assumption on the scalar curvature, a complete conformally compact manifold $(M^{n+1},g)$, with a pole $p$ and with the conformal infinity in the conformal class of the round sphere, has to be the hyperbolic space.
In this paper, we consider the problem of building a conformal boundary, embedding a pseudo-Riamnnian manifold as an open subset of a bigger one. We get first results about conformal maximality. We also show that in dimension $\geq 3$, there are rigidity properties for the topological boundary of such a conformal embedding. We get results of the same kind about general Cartan geometries.
There are several well-known characterizations of the sphere as a regular surface in the Euclidean space. By means of a purely synthetic technique, we get a rigidity result for the sphere without any curvature conditions, nor completeness or compactness. As well as a dual result for the hyperbolic plane, the spacelike sphere in the Minkowski space.
In this paper, we give an optimal inequality relating the relative Yamabe invariant of a certain compactification of a conformally compact Poin-car{é}-Einstein manifold with the Yamabe invariant of its boundary at infinity. As an application, we obtain an elementary proof of the rigidity of the hyper-bolic space as the only conformally compact Poincar{é}-Einstein manifold with the round sphere as its conformal infinity.
Let M be a compact manifold with boundary. In this paper, we discuss some rigidity theorems of metrics in a same conformal class that fixes the boundary and satisfy certain integral conditions on the the scalar curvatures and the mean curvatures on the boundary. No condition on the first eigenvalues of operators is need.
In this paper we show a quantitative rigidity result for the minimizer of the Willmore functional among all projective planes in $\mathbb{R}^n$ with $n\ge 4$. We also construct an explicit counterexample to a corresponding rigidity result in codimension one, by showing that an Enneper surface might split-off during a blow-up process. For conformal immersions of spheres with large enough Willmore energies, we construct explicit counterexamples to a quantitative rigidity result and this complements the recently obtained rigidity results in [LaNg13].
Inspired by the work of F. Hang and X. Wang and partial results by S. Raulot, we prove a scalar curvature rigitidy result for locally conformally flat manifolds with boundary in the spirit of the well-known Min-Oo conjecture.
In this paper, we prove the global rigidity of sphere packings on 3-dimensional manifolds. This is a 3-dimensional analogue of the rigidity theorem of Andreev-Thurston and was conjectured by Cooper and Rivin. We also prove a global rigidity result using a combinatorial scalar curvature introduced by Ge and the author.
In this note, we investigate the well-known Yau rigidity theorem for minimal submanifolds in spheres. Using the parameter method of Yau and the DDVV inequality verified by Lu, Ge and Tang, we prove that if $M$ is an $n$-dimensional oriented compact minimal submanifold in the unit sphere $S^{n+p}(1)$, and if $K_{M}\geq\frac{sgn(p-1)p}{2(p+1)},$ then $M$ is either a totally geodesic sphere, the standard immersion of the product of two spheres, or the Veronese surface in $S^4(1)$. Here $sgn(\cdot)$ is the standard sign function. We also extend the rigidity theorem above to the case where $M$ is a…
Let $(M, \bar g)$ be an $n$-dimensional complete Riemannian manifold. In this paper, we considers the following conformal scalar curvature rigidity problem: Given a compact smooth domain $Ω$ with $\partial Ω$, can one find a conformal metric $g$ whose scalar curvature $R[g]\ge R[\bar g]$ on $Ω$ and the mean curvature $H[g] \ge H[ \bar g]$ on $\partial Ω$ with $\bar g = g$ on $\partial Ω$? We prove that $\bar g = g$ on some smooth domains in a general Riemannian manifold, which is an extension of the previous results given by Qing and Yuan, and Hang and Wang.
We prove a topological rigidity theorem for closed hypersurfaces of the Euclidean sphere and of an elliptic space form. It asserts that, under a lower bound hypothesis on the absolute value of the principal curvatures, the hypersurface is diffeomorphic to a sphere or to a quotient of a sphere by a group action. We also prove another topological rigidity result for hypersurfaces of the sphere that involves the spherical image of its usual Gauss map.
We consider the mean curvature rigidity problem of an equatorial zone on a sphere which is symmetric about the equator with width $2w$. There are two different notions on rigidity, i.e. strong rigidity and local rigidity. We prove that for each kind of these rigidity problems, there exists a critical value such that the rigidity holds true if, and only if, the zone width is smaller than that value. For the rigidity part, we used the tangency principle and a specific lemma (the trap-slice lemma we established before). For the non-rigidity part, we construct the nontrivial perturbations by a glu…
In this paper we prove several quantitative rigidity results for conformal immersions of surfaces in $\mathbb{R}^n$ with bounded total curvature. We show that (branched) conformal immersions which are close in energy to either a round sphere, a conformal Clifford torus, an inverted catenoid, an inverted Enneper's minimal surface or an inverted Chen's minimal graph must be close to these surfaces in the $W^{2,2}$-norm. Moreover, we apply these results to prove a corresponding rigidity result for complete, connected and non-compact surfaces.
We consider a class of overdetermined problems in rotationally symmetric spaces, which reduce to the classical Serrin's overdetermined problem in the case of the Euclidean space. We prove some general integral identities for rotationally symmetric spaces which imply a rigidity result in the case of the round sphere.
We prove that the least area of the non-contractible immersed spheres is no more than $4π$ in any oriented compact manifold with dimension $n+2\leq 7$ which satisfies $R\geq 2$ and admits a map to $\mathbf S^2\times T^n$ with nonzero degree. We also prove a rigidity result for the equality case. This can be viewed as a generalization of the result in [2] to higher dimensions.
We propose a unified computational framework for the problem of deformation and rigidity of submanifolds in a homogeneous space under geometric constraint. A notion of 1-rigidity of a submanifold under admissible deformations is introduced. It measures how a deformation deviates from a one parameter family of motions up to 1st order. We implement this method to rigidity of CR submanifolds in spheres. A class of submanifolds called Bochner rigid submanifolds are shown to be 1-rigid under type preserving CR deformations. This 1-rigidity is then extended to a local rigidity, which roughly states …
For a hypersurface V of a conformal space, we introduce a conformal differential invariant I = h^2/g, where g and h are the first and the second fundamental forms of V connected by the apolarity condition. This invariant is called the conformal quadratic element of V. The solution of the problem of conformal rigidity is presented in the framework of conformal differential geometry and connected with the conformal quadratic element of V. The main theorem states: Let n \geq 4 and V and V' be two nonisotropic hypersurfaces without umbilical points in a conformal space C^n or a pseudoconformal spa…
Moitvated in part by [3], in this note we obtain a rigidity result for globally hyperbolic vacuum spacetimes in arbitrary dimension that admit a timelike conformal Killing vector field. Specifically, we show that if M is a Ricci flat, timelike geodesically complete spacetime with compact Cauchy surfaces that admits a timelike conformal Killing field X, then M must split as a metric product, and X must be Killing. This gives a partial proof of the Bartnik splitting conjecture in the vacuum setting.
Geometry of conformal minimal two-spheres immersed in $G(2,6;\mathbb{R})$ is studied in this paper by harmonic maps. We construct a non-homogeneous constant curved minimal two-sphere in $G(2,6;\mathbb{R})$, and give a classification theorem of linearly full conformal minimal immersions of constant curvature from $S^2$ to $G(2,6;\mathbb{R})$, or equivalently, a complex hyperquadric $Q_{4}$, which illustrates minimal two-spheres of constant curvature in $Q_{4}$ are in general not congruent.
We study existence and non-existence of constant scalar curvature metrics conformal and arbitrarily close to homogeneous metrics on spheres, using variational techniques. This describes all critical points of the Hilbert-Einstein functional on such conformal classes, near homogeneous metrics. Both bifurcation and local rigidity type phenomena are obtained for 1-parameter families of U(n+1), Sp(n+1) and Spin(9)-homogeneous metrics.
We give a sharp upper bound for the area of a minimal two-sphere in a three-manifold (M,g) with positive scalar curvature. If equality holds, we show that the universal cover of (M,g) is isometric to a cylinder.
In this paper we consider min-max minimal surfaces in three-manifolds and prove some rigidity results. For instance, we prove that any metric on a 3-sphere which has scalar curvature greater than or equal to 6 and is not round must have an embedded minimal sphere of area strictly smaller than $4π$ and index at most one. If the Ricci curvature is positive we also prove sharp estimates for the width.
We establish in this paper an upper bound on the second eigenvalue of n-dimensional spheres in the conformal class of the round sphere. This upper bound holds in all dimensions and is asymptotically sharp as the dimension increases.
Let M be a closed minimal hypersurface in 5-dimensional Euclidean sphere with constant nonnegative scalar curvature. We prove that, if the sum of the cubes of all principal curvatures and the number of distinct principal curvatures are constant, then M is isoparametric. Moreover, We give all possible values for squared length of the second fundamental form of M. This result provides another piece of supporting evidence to the Chern conjecture.
In this paper, for an immersion $f$ of an $n$-dimensional Riemannian manifold $M$ into $(n+d)$-Euclidean space we give a sufficient condition on $f$ so that, in case $d\leq 5$, any immersion $g$ of $M$ into $(n+d+1)$-Euclidean space that induces on $M$ a metric that is conformal to the metric induced by $f$ is locally obtained, in a dense subset of $M$, by a composition of $f$ and a conformal immersion from an open subset of $(n+d)$-Euclidean space into an open subset of $(n+d+1)$-Euclidean space. Our result extends a theorem for hypersurfaces due to M. Dajczer and E. Vergasta. The restriction…
We show that a conformal connection on a closed oriented surface $Σ$ of negative Euler characteristic preserves precisely one conformal structure and is furthermore uniquely determined by its unparametrised geodesics. As a corollary it follows that the unparametrised geodesics of a Riemannian metric on $Σ$ determine the metric up to constant rescaling. It is also shown that every conformal connection on the $2$-sphere lies in a complex $5$-manifold of conformal connections, all of which share the same unparametrised geodesics.
Let $M$ be a complete Riemannian $3$-manifold with sectional curvatures between $0$ and $1$. A minimal $2$-sphere immersed in $M$ has area at least $4π$. If an embedded minimal sphere has area $4π$, then $M$ is isometric to the unit $3$-sphere or to a quotient of the product of the unit $2$-sphere with $\mathbb{R}$, with the product metric. We also obtain a rigidity theorem for the existence of hyperbolic cusps. Let $M$ be a complete Riemannian $3$-manifold with sectional curvatures bounded above by $-1$. Suppose there is a $2$-torus $T$ embedded in $M$ with mean curvature one. Then the mean c…
In the article we introduce new conformal and smooth invariants on compact, oriented four-manifolds with boundary. In the first part, we show that "positivity" conditions on these invariants will impose topological restrictions on underlying manifolds with boundary, which generalizes the results on closed four-manifolds by M. Gursky and on conformally compact Einstein four-manifolds by S.-Y. A. Chang, J. Qing, and P. Yang. In the second part, we study Weyl functional on four-manifolds with boundary and establish several conformally invariant rigidity theorems. As applications, we prove some ri…
In this paper we prove that a conformally compact Einstein manifold with the round sphere as its conformal infinity has to be the hyperbolic space. We do not assume the manifolds to be spin, but our approach relies on the positive mass theorem for asymptotic flat manifolds. The proof is based on understanding of positive eigenfunctions and compactifications obtained by positive eigenfunctions.
The purpose of this article is to prove that, under suitable constrains on the electrovacuum spacetime $M$, if $Σ\subset M$ is an embedded strictly stable minimal two-sphere which locally maximizes the charged Hawking mass, then there exist a neighborhood of it in $M$ isometric to the Reissner-Nordström-de Sitter space. At the same time, motived by \cite{Brendle}, we will deduce an estimate for area of a two-sphere which is locally area minimizing in an electrovacuum spacetime. Moreover, if the equality holds, then there exist a neighborhood of it in $M$ isometric to the charged Nariai space.
We prove rigidity for hypersurfaces with boundary in the unit $(n+1)$-sphere with scalar curvature bounded below by $n(n-1)$. Under appropriate boundary conditions, the hypersurfaces are shown to be part of the equatorial spheres. The lower bound $n(n-1)$ is critical in the sense that the hypersurface may contain geodesic points and some natural differential operators are fully degenerate at geodesic points. We overcome the difficulty by studying the geometry of level sets of a height function, via new geometric inequalities. Some rigidity results of hyperplanes and generalized cylinders are a…
We define a complete Riemannian manifold X to be large-scale conformally rigid if all groups that are quasi-isometric to some complete Riemannian manifold of bounded geometry conformal to X are quasi-isometric to X. We prove that many 3-manifolds, including Euclidean 3-space, hyperbolic 3-space and the product of the hyperbolic plane with the real line are large-scale conformally rigid. This implies new characterizations of groups that can act properly, cocompactly by isometries on those manifolds.
Symmetry algebras of Killing vector fields and conformal Killing vectors fields can be extended to Killing-Yano and conformal Killing-Yano superalgebras in constant curvature manifolds. By defining $\mathbb{Z}$-gradations and filtrations of these superalgebras, we show that the second cohomology groups of them are trivial and they cannot be deformed to other Lie superalgebras. This shows the rigidity of Killing-Yano and conformal Killing-Yano superalgebras and reveals the fact that they correspond to geometric invariants of constant curvature manifolds. We discuss the structures and dimensions…
We prove a rigidity result in the sphere which allows us to generalize a result about smooth convex hypersurfaces in the sphere by Do Carmo-Warner to convex $C^2$-hypersurfaces. We apply these results to prove $C^{1,β}$-convergence of inverse F-curvature flows in the sphere to an equator in \mathbb{S}^{n+1} for embedded, closed, strictly convex initial hypersurfaces. The result holds for large classes of curvature functions including the mean curvature and arbitrary powers of the Gauss curvature. We use this result to prove Alexandrov-Fenchel type inequalities in the sphere.
Rigidity of Lagrangian submanifolds with conformal Maslov form and Legendrian capillary boundary
Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture（北京建筑大学）；Chongqing University of Technology（重庆理工大学）；Tsinghua University（清华大学）；Xinyang Normal University（信阳师范大学）
As discussed in the paper, in a matter-filled spacetime, perhaps with positive cosmological constant, a stable marginally outer trapped 2-sphere must satisfy a certain area inquality. Namely, its area must be bounded above by $4π/c$, where $c > 0$ is a lower bound on a natural energy momentum term. In this note we consider the rigidity that results for stable, or weakly outermost, marginally outer trapped 2-spheres that achieve this upper bound on the area. The "canonical" dynamical horizon in Vaidya spacetime and certain spacelike hypersurfaces in Nariai spacetime provide illustrations of the…
In a recent paper the first author established the uniqueness of photon spheres, suitably defined, in static vacuum asymptotically flat spacetimes by adapting Israel's proof of static black hole uniqueness. In this note we establish uniqueness of photon spheres by adapting the argument of Bunting and Masood-ul-Alam, which then allows certain assumptions to be relaxed. In particular, multiple photon spheres are allowed a priori. As a consequence of our result, we can rule out the existence of static configurations involving multiple "very compact" bodies and black holes.
