Calabi flow, Geodesic rays, and uniqueness of constant scalar curvature Kähler metrics
Xiuxiong Chen, Song Sun
备注：
2 Figures. Theorem 5.9 added, providing an analytic proof of a result due to X. Chen and G. Szekelyhidi on the lower bound of K energy on a deformation of cscK manifold; Proof of Theorem 4.4 corrected; More details supplied in the end of Section 6; References updated
We prove that constant scalar curvature Kähler metric "adjacent" to a fixed Kähler class is unique up to isomorphism. This extends the uniqueness theorem of Donaldson and Chen-Tian, and formally fits into the infinite dimensional G.I.T picture described by Donaldson. We prove that the Calabi flow near a cscK metric exists globally and converges uniformly to a cscK metric in a polynomial rate. Viewed in a Kähler class, the Calabi flow is also shown to be asymptotic to a smooth geodesic ray at infinity. This latter fact is also interesting in the finite dimensional analogue, where we show that the downward gradient flow of the Kempf-Ness function in a semi-stable orbit is asymptotic to the direction of optimal degeneration.
We characterize those complete K{ä}hler manifolds supporting a nonconstant real-valued function with critical points whose Hessian is complex linear, has pointwise two eigenvalues and whose gradient is a Hessian-eigenvector.
Recently, F. Balacheff proved that the Calabi-Croke sphere made of two flat 1-unit-side equilateral triangles glued along their boundaries is a local extremum for the length of the shortest closed geodesic among the Riemannian spheres with conical singularities of fixed area. We give an alternative proof of this theorem, which does not make use of the uniformization theorem, and extend the result to Finsler metrics.
In this paper, we first prove a folklore conjecture on a greatest lower bound of the Calabi energy in all Kähler manifold. Similar result in algebriac setting was obtained by S. K. Donaldson. Secondly, we give an upper/lower bound estimate of the K energy in terms of the geodesic distance and the Calabi energy. This is used to prove a theorem on convergence of Kähler metrics in holomorphic coordinates, with uniform bound on the Ricci curvature and the diameter. Thirdly, we set up a framework for the existence of geodesic rays when an asymptotic direction is given. I
Motivated by Luo's combinatorial Yamabe flow on closed surfaces \cite{L1} and Guo's combinatorial Yamabe flow on surfaces with boundary \cite{Guo}, we introduce combinatorial Calabi flow on ideally triangulated surfaces with boundary, aiming at finding hyperbolic metrics on surfaces with totally geodesic boundaries of given lengths. Then we prove the long time existence and global convergence of combinatorial Calabi flow on surfaces with boundary. We further introduce fractional combinatorial Calabi flow on surfaces with boundary, which unifies and generalizes the combinatorial Yamabe flow and…
We study the geodesic equation for the Dirichlet (gradient) metric in the space of Kaehler potentials. We first solve the initial value problem for the geodesic equation of the combination metric, including the gradient metric. We then discuss a comparison theorem between it and the Calabi metric. As geometric motivation of the combination metric, we find that the Ebin metric restricted to the space of type II deformations of a Sasakian structure is the sum of the Calabi metric and the gradient metric.
We conjecture that a non-flat $D$-real-dimensional compact Calabi-Yau manifold, such as a quintic hypersurface with D=6, or a K3 manifold with D=4, has locally length minimizing closed geodesics, and that the number of these with length less than L grows asymptotically as L^{D}. We also outline the physical arguments behind this conjecture, which involve the claim that all states in a nonlinear sigma model can be identified as "momentum" and "winding" states in the large volume limit.
Given any closed Kaehler manifold we define, following an idea by Eugenio Calabi, a Riemannian metric on the space of Kaehler metrics regarded as an infinite dimensional manifold. We prove several geometrical features of the resulting space, some of which we think were already known to Calabi. In particular, the space is a portion of an infinite dimensional sphere and admits explicit unique smooth solutions for the Cauchy and the Dirichlet problems for the geodesic equation.
We consider geometries on the space of Riemannian metrics conformally equivalent to the widely studied Ebin L^2 metric. Among these we characterize a distinguished metric that can be regarded as a generalization of Calabi's metric on the space of Kähler metrics to the space of Riemannian metrics, and we study its geometry in detail. Unlike the Ebin metric, the geodesic equation involves non-local terms, and we solve it explicitly by using a constant of the motion. We then determine its completion, which gives the first example of a metric on the space of Riemannian metrics whose completion is …
Our purpose is to show the existence of a Calabi-Yau structure on the punctured cotangent bundle $T^{*}_{0}(P^2\mathbb{O})$ of the Cayley projective plane $P^{2}\mathbb{O}$ and to construct a Bargmann type transformation from a space of holomorphic functions on $T^{*}_{0}(P^2\mathbb{O})$ to $L_{2}$-space on $P^{2}\mathbb{O}$. The space of holomorphic functions corresponds to the Fock space in the case of the original Bargmann transformation. A Kähler structure on $T^{*}_{0}(P^{2}\mathbb{O})$ was shown by identifying it with a quadrics in the complex space $\mathbb{C}^{27}\backslash\{0\}$ and t…
Let X be a toric surface with Delzant polygon P and u(t) be a solution of the Calabi flow equation on P. Suppose the Calabi flow exists in [0, T). By studying local estimates of the Riemann curvature and the geodesic distance under the Calabi flow, we prove a uniform interior estimate of u(t) for t < T.
We establish sharp universal upper bounds on the length of the shortest closed geodesic on a punctured sphere with three or four ends endowed with a complete Riemannian metric of finite area. These sharp curvature-free upper bounds are expressed in terms of the area of the punctured sphere. In both cases, we describe the extremal metrics, which are modeled on the Calabi-Croke sphere or the tetrahedral sphere. We also extend these optimal inequalities for reversible and non-necessarily reversible Finsler metrics. In this setting, we obtain optimal bounds for spheres with a larger number of punc…
We apply recently developed convex programs to find the minimal-area Riemannian metric on $2n$-sided polygons ($n\geq 3$) with length conditions on curves joining opposite sides. We argue that the Riemannian extremal metric coincides with the conformal extremal metric on the regular $2n$-gon. The hexagon was considered by Calabi. The region covered by the maximal number $n$ of geodesics bands extends over most of the surface and exhibits positive curvature. As $n\to \infty$ the metric, away from the boundary, approaches the well-known round extremal metric on $\mathbb{RP}_2$. We extend Calabi'…
Let $(X,ω)$ be a compact connected Kähler manifold and denote by $(\mathcal E^p,d_p)$ the metric completion of the space of Kähler potentials $\mathcal H_ω$ with respect to the $L^p$-type path length metric $d_p$. First, we show that the natural analytic extension of the (twisted) Mabuchi K-energy to $\mathcal E^p$ is a $d_p$-lsc functional that is convex along finite energy geodesics. Second, following the program of J. Streets, we use this to study the asymptotics of the weak (twisted) Calabi flow inside the CAT(0) metric space $(\mathcal E^2,d_2)$. This flow exists for all times and coincid…
In this paper, we investigate the deformation of generalized circle packings on ideally triangulated surfaces with boundary, which is the $(-1,-1,-1)$ type generalized circle packing metric introduced by Guo-Luo \cite{GL2}. To find hyperbolic metrics on surfaces with totally geodesic boundaries of prescribed lengths, we introduce combinatorial Ricci flow and combinatorial Calabi flow for generalized circle packings on ideally triangulated surfaces with boundary. Then we prove the longtime existence and global convergence for the solutions of these combinatorial curvature flows, which provide e…
Let $X$ be a compact Kähler manifold with a given ample line bundle $L$. In \cite{Don05}, Donaldson proved that the Calabi energy of a Kähler metric in $c_1(L)$ is bounded from below by the supremum of a normalized version of the minus Donaldson--Futaki invariants of test configurations of $(X,L)$. He also conjectured that the bound is sharp. In this paper, we prove a metric analogue of Donaldson's conjecture, we show that if we enlarge the space of test configurations to the space of geodesic rays in $\mathcal{E}^2$ and replace the Donaldson--Futaki invariant by the radial Mabuchi K-energy $\…
The space of positive Lagrangians in an almost Calabi-Yau manifold is an open set in the space of all Lagrangian submanifolds. A Hamiltonian isotopy class of positive Lagrangians admits a natural Riemannian metric $Υ$, which gives rise to a notion of geodesics. We study geodesics of positive $O_n(\mathbb{R})$ invariant Lagrangian spheres in $n$-dimensional $A_m$ Milnor fibers. We show the existence and uniqueness of smooth solutions to the initial value problem and the boundary value problem. In particular, we obtain examples of smooth geodesics of positive Lagrangians in arbitrary dimension. …
We study constant mean curvature spacelike hypersurfaces and in particular maximal hypersurfaces immersed in pp-wave spacetimes satisfying the timelike convergence condition. We prove the non-existence of compact spacelike hypersurfaces whose constant mean curvature is non-zero and also that every compact maximal hypersurface is totally geodesic. Moreover, we give an extension of the classical Calabi-Bernstein theorem to this class of pp-wave spacetimes.
Consider a divisor D with simple normal crossings in a compact Kähler manifold X. We show in this article that a Kähler metric in an arbitrary class, with constant scalar curvature and cusp singularities along the divisor is unique in this class when K[D] is ample. This we do by generalizing Chen's construction of approximate geodesics in the space of Kähler metrics, and proving an approximate version of the Calabi-Yau theorem, both independently of the ampleness of K[D].
We investigate how to obtain various flows of Kähler metrics on a fixed manifold as variations of Kähler reductions of a metric satisfying a given static equation on a higher dimensional manifold. We identify static equations that induce the geodesic equation for the Mabuchi's metric, the Calabi flow, the pseudo-Calabi flow of Chen-Zheng and the Kähler-Ricci flow. In the latter case we re-derive the V-soliton equation of La Nave-Tian.
In this paper we establish new Calabi-Bernstein results for maximal surfaces immersed into a Lorentzian product space of the form $M^2\times\mathbb{R}_1$, where $M^2$ is a connected Riemannian surface and $M^2\times\mathbb{R}_1$ is endowed with the Lorentzian metric $<,>=<,>_{M}-dt^2$. In particular, when $M$ is a Riemannian surface with non-negative Gaussian curvature $K_M$, we prove that any complete maximal surface in $M^2\times\mathbb{R}_1$ must be totally geodesic. Besides, if $M$ is non-flat we conclude that it must be a slice $M\times\{t_0\}$, $t_0\in\mathbb{R}$ (here by "complete" it i…
S. K. Donaldson asked whether the lower bound of the Calabi functional is achieved by a sequence the normalized Donaldson-Futaki invariants. We answer the question for the Ricci curvature formalism, in place of the scalar curvature. The principle is that the stability indicator is optimized by the multiplier ideal sheaves of certain weak geodesic ray asymptotic to the geometric flow. We actually prove it in the two case: the inverse Monge-Ampere flow and the Kahler-Ricci flow.
The Gibbons-Hawking ansatz provides a large family of circle-invariant hyperkaehler 4-manifolds, and thus Calabi-Yau 2-folds. In this setting, we prove versions of the Thomas conjecture on existence of special Lagrangian representatives of Hamiltonian isotopy classes of Lagrangians, and the Thomas-Yau conjecture on long-time existence of the Lagrangian mean curvature flow. We also make observations concerning closed geodesics, curve shortening flow and minimal surfaces.
Let $Y$ be a compact Kähler normal space and $α\in H^{1,1}(Y,\mathbb{R})$ a Kähler class. We study metric properties of the space $\mathcal{H}_α$ of Kähler metrics in $α$ using Mabuchi geodesics. We extend several results by Calabi, Chen, Darvas previously established when the underlying space is smooth. As an application we analytically characterize the existence of Kähler-Einstein metrics on $\mathbb{Q}$-Fano varieties, generalizing a result of Tian, and illustrate these concepts in the case of toric varieties.
We introduce a new class of discrete conformal structures on surfaces with boundary, which have nice interpolations in 3-dimensional hyperbolic geometry. Then we prove the global rigidity of the new discrete conformal structures using variational principles, which is a complement of Guo-Luo's rigidity of the discrete conformal structures and Guo's rigidity of vertex scaling on surface with boundary. As a result, new convexities of the volume of generalized hyperbolic pyramids with right-angled hyperbolic hexagonal bases are obtained. Motivated by Chow-Luo's combinatorial Ricci flow and Luo's c…
On a compact complex manifold $(M, J)$ endowed with a holomorphic Poisson tensor $π_J$ and a deRham class $α\in H^2(M, \mathbb R)$, we study the space of generalized Kähler (GK) structures defined by a symplectic form $F\in α$ and whose holomorphic Poisson tensor is $π_J$. We define a notion of generalized Kähler class of such structures, and use the moment map framework of Boulanger and Goto to extend the Calabi program to GK geometry. We obtain generalizations of the Futaki--Mabuchi extremal vector field and Calabi--Lichnerowicz--Matsushima result for the Lie algebra of the group of automorp…
