We construct compact arbitrary Euler characteristic orientable and non-orientable minimal surfaces in the Berger spheres. Besides we show an interesting family of surfaces that are minimal in every Berger sphere, characterizing them by this property. Finally we construct, via the Daniel correspondence, new examples of constant mean curvature surfaces in the products S^2 x R, H^2 x R and in the Heisenberg group with many symmetries.
In this paper, we study biharmonic isometric immersions of a surface into and biharmonic Riemannian submersion from 3-dimensional Berger spheres. We obtain a classification of proper biharmonic isometric immersions of a surface with constant mean curvature into Berger 3-spheres. We also give a complete classification of proper biharmonic Hopf tori in Berger 3-sphere. For Riemannian submersions, we prove that a Riemannian submersion from Berger 3-spheres into a surface is biharmonic if and only if it is harmonic.
In the 1-parameter family of Berger spheres S^3(a), a > 0 (S^3(1) is the round 3-sphere of radius 1) we classify the stable constant mean curvature spheres, showing that in some Berger spheres (a close to 0) there are unstable constant mean curvature spheres. Also, we classify the orientable compact stable constant mean curvature surfaces in S^3(a), 1/3 <= a < 1 proving that they are spheres or the minimal Clifford torus in S^3(1/3). This allows to solve the isoperimetric problem in these Berger spheres.
We give a full classification of complete rotationally invariant surfaces with constant Gauss curvature in Berger spheres: they are either Clifford tori, which are flat, or spheres of Gauss curvature $K \geq K_0$ for a positive constant $K_0$, which we determine explicitly and depends on the geometry of the ambient Berger sphere. For values of $K_0 \leq K \leq K_P$, for a specific constant $K_P$, it was not known until now whether complete constant Gauss curvature $K$ surfaces existed in Berger spheres, so our classification provides the first examples. For $K > K_P$, we prove that the rotatio…
The invariant metric affine connections on Berger spheres which are Einstein with skew torsion are determined in both Riemannian and Lorentzian signature. Expressions of such connections are explicitly given. In particular, every Berger sphere with Lorentzian signature admits invariant metric affine connections Einstein with skew-torsion up to $\mathbb{S}^3$. For Riemannian signature, the existence of such connections strongly depends on the dimension of the sphere and on the scale of the deformation used for the Berger metric. In particular, there are Riemaniann Berger spheres, not Einstein, …
We characterize helix surfaces in the Berger sphere, that is surfaces which form a constant angle with the Hopf vector field. In particular, we show that, locally, a helix surface is determined by a suitable 1-parameter family of isometries of the Berger sphere and by a geodesic of a 2-torus in the 3-dimensional sphere.
The integral of the top dimensional term of the multiplicative sequence of Pontryagin forms associated to an even formal power series is calculated for special Riemannian metrics on the unit ball of a hermitean vector space. Using this result we calculate the generating function of the reduced Dirac and signature eta-invariants for the family of Berger metrics on the odd dimensional spheres.
We study the negative gradient flow of the spinorial energy functional (introduced by Ammann, Weiß, and Witt) on 3-dimensional Berger spheres. For a certain class of spinors we show that the Berger spheres collapse to a 2-dimensional sphere. Moreover, for special cases, we prove that the volume-normalized standard 3-sphere together with a Killing spinor is a stable critical point of the volume-normalized version of the flow. Our results also include an example of a critical point of the volume-normalized flow on the 3-sphere, which is not a Killing spinor.
Our aim in this paper is to investigate some geometrical properties of Berger Spheres i.e. homogeneous Ricci solitons and harmonicity properties of invariant vector fields. We determine all vector fields which are critical points for the energy functional restricted to vector fields. We also see that do not exist any vector fields defining harmonic map, and the energy of critical points is explicitly calculated.
In this work, we study the stability of Hopf vector fields on Lorentzian Berger spheres as critical points of the energy, the volume and the generalized energy. In order to do so, we construct a family of vector fields using the simultaneous eigenfunctions of the Laplacian and of the vertical Laplacian of the sphere. The Hessians of the functionals are negative when they act on these particular vector fields and then Hopf vector fields are unstable. Moreover, we use this technique to study some of the open problems in the Riemannian case.
The stability and the index of compact minimal submanifolds of the Berger spheres $\mathbb{S}^{2n+1}_τ,\, 0<τ\leq 1$, are studied. Unlike the case of the standard sphere ($τ=1$), where there are no stable compact minimal submanifolds, the Berger spheres have stable ones if and only if $τ^2\leq 1/2$. Moreover, there are no stable compact minimal $d$-dimensional submanifolds of $\mathbb{S}^{2n+1}_τ$ when $1 / (d+1) < τ^2 \leq 1$ and the stable ones are classified for $τ^2=1 / (d+1)$ when the submanifold is embedded. Finally, the compact orientable minimal surfaces of $\mathbb{S}^3_τ$ with index …
In this work, we study helix spacelike and timelike surfaces in the Lorentzian Berger sphere $\s_{\varepsilon}^3$, that is the three-dimensional sphere endowed with a $1$-parameter family of Lorentzian metrics, obtained by deforming the round metric on $\s^3$ along the fibers of the Hopf fibration $\s^3\to \s^2({1}/{2})$ by $-\varepsilon^2$. Our main result provides a characterization of the helix surfaces in $\s_{\varepsilon}^3$ using the symmetries of the ambient space and a general helix in $\s_{\varepsilon}^3$, with axis the infinitesimal generator of the Hopf fibers. Also, we construct so…
We propose a special deformation of the Sasaki metric on tangent and unit tangent bundle of a Hermitian locally symmetric manifold. Geodesics of this deformed metric have different projections on a base manifold for tangent or unit tangent bundle cases in contrast to usual Sasaki metric. Nevertheless, the projections of geodesics of the unit tangent bundle still preserve the property to have all geodesic curvatures constant.
We classify constant mean curvature surfaces invariant by a 1-parameter group of isometries in the Berger spheres and in the special linear group Sl(2, R). In particular, all constant mean curvature spheres in those spaces are described explicitly, proving that they are not always embedded. Besides new examples of Delaunay-type surfaces are obtained. Finally the relation between the area and volume of these spheres in the Berger spheres is studied, showing that, in some cases, they are not solution to the isoperimetric problem.
We discuss existence and classification of totally umbilic surfaces in the model geometries of Thurston and the Berger spheres. We classify such surfaces in $H^2 \times R$, $S^2 \times R$ and the Sol group. We prove nonexistence in the Berger spheres and in the remaining model geometries other than the space forms.
The study of minimal surfaces has a long history, due to the important applications. Given a fixed boundary, one wants to minimise the surface area: this can be used, for example, to minimise the area of the roof of a building. Similarly, looking for constant mean curvature (CMC) provides us with many interesting applications in physics: one of the easiest examples are soap bubbles. In this work however we occupy ourselves with minimal and constant mean curvature surfaces in the three-dimensional sphere $S^3$ and its dual space $Σ^3$. In Chapter 1 we give a brief overview of the tools of Riema…
We obtain inequalities for all Laplace eigenvalues of Riemannian manifolds with an upper sectional curvature bound, whose rudiment version for the first Laplace eigenvalue was discovered by Berger in 1979. We show that our inequalities continue to hold for conformal metrics, and moreover, extend naturally to minimal submanifolds. In addition, we obtain explicit estimates for Laplace eigenvalues of minimal submanifolds in terms of geometric quantities of the ambient space.
In this paper we show that for a Berger metric $\hat{g}$ on $S^3$, the non-positively curved conformally compact Einstein metric on the $4$-ball $B_1(0)$ with $(S^3, [\hat{g}])$ as its conformal infinity is unique up to isometries and it is the metric constructed by Pedersen \cite{Pedersen}. In particular, since in \cite{LiQingShi}, we proved that if the Yamabe constant of the conformal infinity $Y(S^3, [\hat{g}])$ is close to that of the round sphere then any conformally compact Einstein manifold filled in must be negatively curved and simply connected, therefore if $\hat{g}$ is a Berger metr…
In this paper, we prove that the $3$-sphere endowed with an arbitrary Riemannian metric either contains at least two embedded minimal $2$-spheres or admits an optimal foliation by $2$-spheres. This generalizes recent results by Haslhofer-Ketover (Duke Math. J. 2019), where the existence of optimal foliations and minimal $2$-spheres has been established under the additional assumption that the metric is generic. In light of recent examples by Wang-Zhou, where min-max for some non-bumpy metrics on the 3-sphere produces higher multiplicities, our results are in a certain sense sharp.
We show that a compact embedded minimal or constant mean curvature annulus with non-vanishing Gaussian curvature which is tangent to two spheres of same radius or tangent to a sphere and meeting a plane in constant contact angle is rotational.
We study the control system of a Riemannian manifold $M$ of dimension $n$ rolling on the sphere $S^n$. The controllability of this system is described in terms of the holonomy of a vector bundle connection which, we prove, is isomorphic to the Riemannian holonomy group of the cone $C(M)$ of $M$. Using Berger's list, we reduce the possible holonomies to a few families. In particular, we focus on the cases where the holonomy is the unitary and the symplectic group. In the first case, using the rolling formalism, we construct explicitly a Sasakian structure on $M$; and in the second case, we cons…
We extend to higher dimensions earlier sharp bounds for the area of two dimensional free boundary minimal surfaces contained in a geodesic ball of the round sphere. This follows work of Brendle and Fraser-Schoen in the euclidean case.
In this paper we completely classify the homogeneous two-spheres, especially, the minimal homogeneous ones in the quaternionic projective space $\textbf{HP}^n$. According to our classification, more minimal constant curved two-spheres in $\textbf{HP}^n$ are obtained than Ohnita conjectured in the paper "Homogeneous harmonic maps into projective space, Tokyo J Math, 1990, 13(1): 87-116".
In this paper, the singular-value decomposition theory of complex matrices is explored to study constantly curved 2-spheres minimal in both $\mathbb{C}P^n$ and the hyperquadric of $\mathbb{C}P^n$. The moduli space of all those noncongruent ones is introduced, which can be described by certain complex symmetric matrices modulo an appropriate group action. Using this description, many examples, such as constantly curved holomorphic 2-spheres of higher degree, nonhomogenous minimal 2-spheres of constant curvature, etc., are constructed. Uniqueness is proven for the totally real constantly curved …
We define two transforms between minimal surfaces with non-circular ellipse of curvature in the 5-sphere, and show how this enables us to construct, from one such surface, a sequence of such surfaces. We also use the transforms to show how to associate to such a surface a corresponding ruled minimal Lagrangian submanifold of complex projective 3-space. We illustrate this explicitly in the case of bipolar minimal surfaces.
In this paper, we prove that minimal hypersurfaces when $n\geq 3$ and nonzero constant mean curvature hypersurfaces when $n\geq2$ foliated by spheres in parallel horizontal hyperplanes in ${\mathbb{H}}^n \times \mathbb{R}$ must be rotationally symmetric.
We give a local analytic characterization that a minimal surface in the 3-sphere $\, \ES^3 \subset \R^4$ defined by an irreducible cubic polynomial is one of the Lawson's minimal tori. This provides an alternative proof of the result by Perdomo (\emph{Characterization of order 3 algebraic immersed minimal surfaces of $S^3$},Geom. Dedicata 129 (2007), 23--34).
In this note, we study submanifold geometry of the Atiyah-Hitchin manifold, the double cover of the $2$-monopole moduli space. When the manifold is naturally identified as the total space of a line bundle over $S^2$, the zero section is a distinguished minimal $2$-sphere of considerable interest. In particular, there has been a conjecture by Micallef and Wolfson [Math. Ann. 295 (1993), Remark on p.262] about the uniqueness of this minimal $2$-sphere among all closed minimal $2$-surfaces. We show that this minimal $2$-sphere satisfies the "strong stability condition" proposed in our earlier wor…
Given a closed manifold of dimension at least three, with non trivial homotopy group π_3(M) and a generic metric, we prove that there is a finite collection of harmonic spheres with Morse index bound one, with sum of their energies realizes a geometric invariant width.
This is a preliminary note on a family of minimal surfaces in the 3-sphere defined by a compatible fourth order equation. The minimal surfaces are geometrically characterized either by having a surface of revolution like induced metric, or by having a flat structure 3-web. We observe that the structure equation un-couples for a natural choice of frame. The analysis is reduced to the associated curves in the 2-sphere defined by a rational third order ODE on the curvature.
Using a new estimate for the Peng-Terng invariant and the multiple-parameter method, we verify a rigidity theorem on the stronger version of Chern Conjecture for minimal hypersurfaces in spheres. More precisely, we prove that if $M$ is a compact minimal hypersurface in $\mathbb{S}^{n+1}$ whose squared length of the second fundamental form satisfies $0\leq S-n\leq\frac{n}{18}$, then $S\equiv n$ and $M$ is a Clifford torus.
Stable compact minimal submanifolds of the product of a sphere and any Riemannian manifold are classified whenever the dimension of the sphere is at least three. The complete classification of the stable compact minimal submanifolds of the product of two spheres is obtained. Also, it is proved that the only stable compact minimal surfaces of the product of a 2-sphere and any Riemann surface are the complex ones.
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…
In this short note we extend an estimate due to J. Simons on the first stability eigenvalue of minimal hypersurfaces in spheres to the singular setting. Specifically, we show that any singular minimal hypersurface in $S^{n+1}$, which is not totally geodesic and satisfies the α-structural hypothesis, has first stability eigenvalue at most -2n, with equality if and only if it is a product of two round spheres. The equality case was settled independently in the classical setting by Wu and Perdomo.
We construct closed embedded minimal surfaces in the round three-sphere, resembling two parallel copies of the equatorial two-sphere, joined by small catenoidal bridges symmetrically arranged either along two parallel circles of the equator, or along the equatorial circle and the poles. To carry out these constructions we refine and reorganize the doubling methodology in ways which we expect to apply also to further constructions. In particular we introduce what we call linearized doubling, which is an intermediate step where singular solutions to the linearized equation are constructed subjec…
We introduce a class of minimal submanfolds $M^n$, $n\geq 3$, in spheres $\mathbb{S}^{n+2}$ that are ruled by totally geodesic spheres of dimension $n-2$. If simply-connected, such a submanifold admits a one-parameter associated family of equally ruled minimal isometric deformations that are genuine. As for compact examples, there are plenty of them but only for dimensions $n=3$ and $n=4$. In the first case, we have that $M^3$ must be a $\mathbb{S}^1$-bundle over a minimal torus $T^2$ in $\mathbb{S}^5$ and in the second case $M^4$ has to be a $\mathbb{S}^2$-bundle over a minimal sphere $\mathb…
A correspondence is established between a class of minimal immersed surfaces of $\mathbb{S}^3(2)$ and area-minimizing unit vector fields defined on the antipodally punctured unit sphere $\mathbb{S}^2\backslash\{N,S\}$. As a consequence, we establish a stability relation for Lawson cylinders in $\mathbb{S}^3(2)$.
We study a class of exceptional minimal surfaces in spheres for which all Hopf differentials are holomorphic. Extending results of Eschenburg and Tribuzy \cite{ET0}, we obtain a description of exceptional surfaces in terms of a set of absolute value type functions, the $a$-invariants, that determine the geometry of the higher order curvature ellipses and satisfy certain Ricci-type conditions. We show that the $a$-invariants determine these surfaces up to a multiparameter family of isometric minimal deformations, where the number of the parameters is precisely the number of non-vanishing Hopf d…
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.
We construct examples of spherical space forms $(S^3/Γ,g)$ with positive scalar curvature and containing no stable embedded minimal surfaces, such that the following happens along the Ricci flow starting at $(S^3/Γ,g)$: a stable embedded minimal two-sphere appears and a non-trivial singularity occurs. We also give in dimension $3$ a general contruction of Type I neckpinching and clarify the relationship between stable spheres and non-trivial Type I singularities of the Ricci flow. Some symmetry assumptions prevent the appearance of stable spheres, and this has consequences on the types of sing…
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…
