We study a functional on the boundary of a compact Riemannian 3-manifold of nonnegative scalar curvature. The functional arises as the second variation of the Wang-Yau quasi-local energy in general relativity. We prove that the functional is positive definite on large coordinate spheres, and more general on nearly round surfaces including large constant mean curvature spheres in asymptotically flat 3-manifolds with positive mass; it is also positive definite on small geodesics spheres, whose centers do not have vanishing curvature, in Riemannian 3-manifolds of nonnegative scalar curvature. We also give examples of functions H, which can be made arbitrarily close to the constant 2, on the standard sphere such that the boundary data consisting of the standard spherical metric and H has positive Brown-York mass while the associated functional is negative somewhere.
In this paper, we prove the following theorem regarding the Wang-Yau quasi-local energy of a spacelike two-surface in a spacetime: Let $Σ$ be a boundary component of some compact, time-symmetric, spacelike hypersurface $Ω$ in a time-oriented spacetime $N$ satisfying the dominant energy condition. Suppose the induced metric on $Σ$ has positive Gaussian curvature and all boundary components of $Ω$ have positive mean curvature. Suppose $H \le H_0$ where $H$ is the mean curvature of $Σ$ in $Ω$ and $H_0$ is the mean curvature of $Σ$ when isometrically embedded in $R^3$. If $Ω$ is not isometric to a…
In this article, we study the small sphere limit of the Wang-Yau quasi-local energy defined in [18,19]. Given a point $p$ in a spacetime $N$, we consider a canonical family of surfaces approaching $p$ along its future null cone and evaluate the limit of the Wang-Yau quasi-local energy. The evaluation relies on solving an "optimal embedding equation" whose solutions represent critical points of the quasi-local energy. For a spacetime with matter fields, the scenario is similar to that of the large sphere limit found in [7]. Namely, there is a natural solution which is a local minimum, and the l…
Given a spacelike 2-surface $Σ$ in a spacetime $N$ and a constant future timelike unit vector $T_0 $ in $\R^{3,1}$, we derive upper and lower estimates of Wang-Yau quasilocal energy $E(Σ, X, T_0)$ for a given isometric embedding $X$ of $Σ$ into a flat 3-slice in $\R^{3,1}$. The quantity $ E(Σ, X, T_0) $ itself depends on the choice of $X$, however the infimum of $ E(Σ, X, T_0)$ over $ T_0 $ does not. In particular, when $Σ$ lies in a time symmetric 3-slice in $N$ and has nonnegative Brown-York quasilocal mass $\mby(Σ)$, our estimates show that $\inf\limits_{T_0}E(Σ, X, T_0)$ equals $ \mby (Σ)$…
Inspired by the work of Chen-Zhang \cite{Chen-Zhang}, we derive an evolution formula for the Wang-Yau quasi-local energy in reference to a static space, introduced by Chen-Wang-Wang-Yau \cite{CWWY}. If the reference static space represents a mass minimizing, static extension of the initial surface $Σ$, we observe that the derivative of the Wang-Yau quasi-local energy is equal to the derivative of the Bartnik quasi-local mass at $Σ$. Combining the evolution formula for the quasi-local energy with a localized Penrose inequality proved in \cite{Lu-Miao}, we prove a rigidity theorem for compact $3…
In this paper lower bounds are obtained for quasi-local masses in terms of charge, angular momentum, and horizon area. In particular we treat three quasi-local masses based on a Hamiltonian approach, namely the Brown-York, Liu-Yau, and Wang-Yau masses. The geometric inequalities are motivated by analogous results for the ADM mass. They may be interpreted as localized versions of these inequalities, and are also closely tied to the conjectured Bekenstein bounds for entropy of macroscopic bodies. In addition, we give a new proof of the positivity property for the Wang-Yau mass which is used to r…
In this paper, we show that the Chen-Nester-Tung (CNT) quasi-local energy is closely related to the Wang-Yau (WY) quasi-local mass. As a particular example, we compute the second variation of the CNT quasi-local energy for axially symmetric Kerr-like spacetimes with axially symmetric embeddings at the obvious critical point (0,0) and find that it is a saddle critical point in most of the cases. Also, as a byproduct, we generalize a previous result about the coincidence of CNT quasi-local energy and Brown-York mass for Kerr-like spacetimes by Tam and the first author to general spacetimes.
We derive a parabolic version of Omori-Yau maximum principle for a proper mean curvature flow when the ambient space has lower bound on $\ell$-sectional curvature. We apply this to show that the image of Gauss map is preserved under a proper mean curvature flow in euclidean spaces with uniform bounded second fundamental forms. This generalizes the result of Wang \cite{Wang} for compact immersions. We also prove a Omori-Yau maximum principle for properly immersed self-shrinkers, which improves a result in \cite{CJQ}.
I shall discuss the Chen-Wang-Yau quasilocal angular momentum, which is defined based on the theory of optimal isometric embedding and quasilocal mass of Wang-Yau, and the limits of which at spatial and null infinity of an isolated gravitating system. This is based on joint work with Po-Ning Chen, Jordan Keller, Ye-Kai Wang, and Shing-Tung Yau.
In this paper we generalize examples of Hamiltonian stationary Lagrangian submanifolds constructed by Lee and Wang in $\mathbb{C}^m$ to toric almost Calabi-Yau manifolds. We construct examples of weighted Hamiltonian stationary Lagrangian submanifolds in toric almost Calabi-Yau manifolds and solutions of generalized Lagrangian mean curvature flows starting from these examples. We allow these flows to have some singularities and topological changes.
Wang and Yau [10] introduced a quasi-local mass, which is a hyperbolic background generalization of Liu-Yau's expression [7] [8], and proved its positivity. In this note, we prove that the positivity of this quasi-local mass is still valid under weaker assumptions on the boundary hypersurface in general dimensions. The method we used is similar to that used by Eichmair, Miao and Wang in [4].
In this article, we survey recent developments in defining the quasi-local mass in general relativity. We discuss various approaches and the properties and applications of the different definitions. Among the expected properties, we focus on the rigidity property: for a surface in the Minkowski spacetime, one expects that the mass should vanish. We describe the Wang-Yau quasi-local mass whose definition is motivated by this rigidity property and by the Hamilton-Jacobi analysis of the Einstein-Hilbert action. In addition, we survey recent results on the minimizing property the Wang-Yau quasi-lo…
In relativity, the energy of a moving particle depends on the observer, and the rest mass is the minimal energy seen among all observers. The Wang-Yau quasi-local mass for a surface in spacetime introduced in [7] and [8] is defined by minimizing quasi-local energy associated with admissible isometric embeddings of the surface into the Minkowski space. A critical point of the quasi-local energy is an isometric embedding satisfying the Euler-Lagrange equation. In this article, we prove results regarding both local and global minimizing properties of critical points of the Wang-Yau quasi-local en…
In this note, we compute the limit of the Wang-Yau quasi-local mass on unit spheres at spatial infinity of an asymptotically flat initial data set. Similar to the small sphere limit of the Wang-Yau quasi-local mass, we prove that the leading order term of the quasi-local mass recovers the stress-energy tensor. For a vacuum spacetime, the quasi-local mass decays faster and the leading order term is related to the Bel-Robinson tensor. Several new techniques of evaluating quasilocal mass are developed in this note.
We calculate the limits of the quasi-local angular momentum and center-of-mass defined by Chen-Wang-Yau \cite{CWY} for a family of spacelike two-spheres approaching future null infinity in an asymptotically flat spacetime admitting a Bondi-Sachs expansion. Our result complements earlier work of Chen-Wang-Yau \cite{CWY2}, where the authors calculate the limits of the quasi-local energy and linear momentum at null infinity. Finiteness of the center-of-mass limit requires that the spacetime be in the so-called center-of-mass frame, a mild assumption on the mass aspect function amounting to vanish…
We discuss our recent work [4] in which gravitational radiation was studied by evaluating the Wang-Yau quasi-local mass of surfaces of fixed size at the infinity of both axial and polar perturbations of the Schwarzschild spacetime, à la Chandrasekhar [1].
Given a polarized family of varieties over the unit disc, smooth except over the origin and with smooth fibers Calabi-Yau, we show that the origin lies at finite Weil-Petersson distance if and only if after a finite base change the family is birational to one with central fiber a Calabi-Yau variety with at worst canonical singularities, answering a question of C.-L. Wang. This condition also implies that the Ricci-flat Kahler metrics in the polarization class on the smooth fibers have uniformly bounded diameter, or are uniformly volume non-collapsed.
We construct quasi-Einstein metrics on some hypersurface families. The hypersurfaces are circle bundles over the product of Fano, Kähler-Einstein manifolds. The quasi-Einstein metrics are related to various gradient Kähler-Ricci solitons constructed by Dancer and Wang and some Hermitian, non-Kähler, Einstein metrics constructed by Wang and Wang on the same manifolds.
In the present work we provide a constructive method to describe contact structures on compact homogeneous contact manifolds. The main feature of our approach is to describe the Cartan-Ehresmann connection (gauge field) for principal circle bundles over complex flag manifolds by using elements of representation theory of simple Lie algebras. This description allows us to compute explicitly the expression of the contact form for any Boothby-Wang fibration over complex flag manifolds as well as their induced homogeneous Sasaki-Einstein structures. As an application of our results we use the Cart…
We use the isometric embedding of the spatial horizon of fast rotating Kerr black hole in a hyperbolic space to compute the quasi-local mass of the horizon for any value of the spin parameter $j=J/m^2$. The mass is monotonically decreasing from twice the ADM mass at $j=0$ to $1.76569m$ at $j=\sqrt{3}/2$. It then monotonicaly increases to a maximum around $j=0.99907$, and finally decreases to $2.01966m$ for $j=1$ which corresponds to the extreme Kerr black hole.
We prove several formulas related to Hodge theory and the Kodaira-Spencer-Kuranishi deformation theory of Kähler manifolds. As applications, we present a construction of globally convergent power series of integrable Beltrami differentials on Calabi-Yau manifolds and also a construction of global canonical family of holomorphic $(n,0)$-forms on the deformation spaces of Calabi-Yau manifolds. Similar constructions are also applied to the deformation spaces of compact Kähler manifolds.
We consider graphs Sigma^n in R^m with prescribed mean curvature and flat normal bundle. Using techniques of Schoen, Simon and Yau, and Ecker-Huisken, we derive an interior curvature estimate of the form |A|^2<=C/R^2 up to dimension n<=5, where C is a constant depending on natural geometric data of Sigma^n only. This generalizes previous results of Smoczyk, Wang and Xin, and Wang for minimal graphs with flat normal bundle.
We give a brief review of the definition of the Wang-Yau quasilocal mass and discuss the evaluation of which on surfaces of unit size at null infinity of an axi-symmetric spacetime in Bondi-van der Burg-Metzner coordinates.
In this note, we study the SYZ mirror construction for a toric Calabi-Yau manifold using instanton corrections coming from Woodward's quasimap Floer theory instead of Fukaya-Oh-Ohta-Ono's Lagrangian Floer theory. We show that the resulting SYZ mirror coincides with the one written down via physical means (as expected).
We construct new examples of quasi-asymptotically conical (QAC) Calabi-Yau manifolds that are not quasi-asymptotically locally Euclidean (QALE). We do so by first providing a natural compactification of QAC-spaces by manifolds with fibred corners and by giving a definition of QAC-metrics in terms of an associated Lie algebra of smooth vector fields on this compactification. Thanks to this compactification and the Fredholm theory for elliptic operators on QAC-spaces developed by the second author and Mazzeo, we can in many instances obtain Kähler QAC-metrics having Ricci potential decaying suff…
We give an elementary proof to the asymptotic expansion formula of Rochon-Zhang for the unique complete Kähler-Einstein metric of Cheng-Yau, Kobayashi, Tian-Yau and Bando on quasi-projective manifolds. The main tools are the solution formula for second order ODE's with constant coefficients and spectral theory for Laplacian operator on a closed manifold.
In \cite{ly, ly2}, Liu and the second author propose a definition of the quasi-local mass and prove its positivity. This is demonstrated through an inequality which in turn can be interpreted as a total mean curvature comparison theorem for isometric embeddings of a surface of positive Gaussian curvature. The Riemannian version corresponds to an earlier theorem of Shi and Tam \cite{st}. In this article, we generalize such an inequality to the case when the Gaussian curvature of the surface is allowed to be negative. This is done by an isometric embedding into the hyperboloid in the Minkowski s…
Let X be a compact Kahler orbifold without \C-codimension-1 singularities. Let D be a suborbifold divisor in X such that D \supset Sing(X) and -pK_X = q[D] for some p, q \in \N with q > p. Assume that D is Fano. We prove the following two main results. (1) If D is Kahler-Einstein, then, applying results from our previous paper, we show that each Kahler class on X\D contains a unique asymptotically conical Ricci-flat Kahler metric, converging to its tangent cone at infinity at a rate of O(r^{-1-ε}) if X is smooth. This provides a definitive version of a theorem of Tian and Yau. (2) We introduce…
We study the supremum of the total mean curvature on the boundary of compact, mean-convex 3-manifolds with nonnegative scalar curvature, and a prescribed boundary metric. We establish an additivity property for this supremum and exhibit rigidity for maximizers assuming the supremum is attained. When the boundary consists of 2-spheres, we demonstrate that the finiteness of the supremum follows from the previous work of Shi-Tam and Wang-Yau on the quasi-local mass problem in general relativity. In turn, we define a variational analog of Brown-York quasi-local mass without assuming that the bound…
There are two important statements regarding the Trautman-Bondi mass [1,8,5] at null infinity: one is the positivity [7,6], and the other is the Bondi mass loss formula [1], which are both global in nature. The positivity of the quasi-local mass can potentially lead to a local description at null infinity. This is confirmed for the Vaidya spacetime in this note. We study the Wang-Yau quasi-local mass on surfaces of fixed size at the null infinity of the Vaidya spacetime. The optimal embedding equation is solved explicitly and the quasi-local mass is evaluated in terms of the mass aspect functi…
For an admissible class of smooth compact initial data sets with boundary, we prove a comparison theorem between the Wang/Liu-Yau quasi-local mass of the boundary and the Hawking mass of strictly minimizing hulls in the Jang graphs of the domain. Using this, we prove a quasi-local Penrose inequality that involves these quasi-local masses of the boundary and the area of an outermost marginally outer trapped surface (MOTS) in the domain or the area of minimizing minimal surface within the Jang graphs. Moreover, we obtain sufficient conditions for the (non)existence of a MOTS within a domain, in …
In this note, We proved that a compact Sasakian manifold $( M, ξ, η, Φ , g )$ with negative transverse holomorphic sectional curvature must have has a Sasakian structure $( ξ, η , Φ , g )$ with negative transverse Ricci curvature. Similarly, a compact Sasakian manifold with non-positive transverse holomorphic sectional curvature, then the negative first basic Chern class is transverse nef and we have the Miyaoka-Yau type inequality. When transverse holomorphic sectional curvature is quasi-negative, we obtain a Chern number inequality.
We use an idea of Wang and Yau to give a new definition of quasi-local mass for a topological sphere in an initial date set. The new definition modifies Brown-York's definition by using certain spinor norm as lapse function. And it requires mean curvature of the topological sphere satisfies apparent horizon conditions, the topological sphere can be isometrically into Euclidean 3-space and mean curvature of the initial date set does not change sign. The positivity holds if we further assume the image of the topological sphere in Euclidean 3-space has nonnegative mean curvature.
In this short note we prove that any complete four dimensional anti-self-dual (or self-dual) quasi-Einstein manifolds is either Einstein or locally conformally flat. This generalizes a recent result of X. Chen and Y. Wang.
A recent celebrated theorem of Diverio-Trapani and Wu-Yau states that a compact Kähler manifold admitting a Kähler metric of quasi-negative holomorphic sectional curvature has an ample canonical line bundle, confirming a conjecture of Yau. In this paper we shall consider a natural notion of almost quasi-negative holomorphic sectional curvature and extend this theorem to compact Kähler manifolds of almost quasi-negative holomorphic sectional curvature. We also obtain a gap-type theorem for the inequality $\int_Xc_1(K_X)^n>0$ in terms of the holomorphic sectional curvature. In the discussions, w…
In this paper, we obtain a positivity result of a quasi-local mass integral as proposed by Shi and Tam in general dimensions. The main argument is based on the monotonicity of a mass integral in a foliation of quasi-spherical metrics and a positive mass type theorem which was proved by Wang and Yau in the three dimensional case, and is shown here in higher dimensions using spinor methods.
In a recent preprint, Chi Li proved that aymptotically conical complex manifolds with regular tangent cone at infinity admit holomorphic compactifications (his result easily extends to the quasiregular case). In this short note, we show that if the open manifold is Calabi-Yau, then Chi Li's compactification is projective algebraic. This has two applications. First, every Calabi-Yau manifold of this kind can be constructed using our refined Tian-Yau type theorem from the second article in this series. Secondly, we prove classification theorems for such manifolds via deformation to the normal co…
In this paper, we construct a completion of the moduli space for polarized Calabi-Yau manifolds by using Ricci-flat Kähler-Einstein metrics and the Gromov-Hausdorff topology, which parameterizes certain Calabi-Yau varieties. We then study the algebro-geometric perperties and the Weil-Petersson geometry of such completion. We show that the completion can be exhausted by sequences of quasi-projective varieties, and new points added have finite Weil-Petersson distance to the interior.
We study a class of asymptotically cylindrical Ricci-flat Kähler metrics arising on quasiprojective manifolds. Using the Calabi--Yau geometry and analysis and the Kodaira--Kuranishi--Spencer theory and building up on results of N.Koiso for the case of compact manifolds, we show that under rather general hypotheses any `small' asymptotically cylindrical Ricci-flat deformations of asymptotically cylindrical Ricci-flat Kähler metrics are again Kähler, possibly with respect to a perturbed complex structure. We also find the dimension of the moduli space for these small deformations. In the class o…
We find new examples of compact Spin(7)-manifolds using a construction of Joyce. The essential ingredient in Joyce's construction is a Calabi-Yau 4-orbifold with particular singularities admitting an antiholomorphic involution, which fixes the singularities. We search the class of well-formed quasismooth hypersurfaces in weighted projective spaces for suitable Calabi-Yau 4-orbifolds. We find that different hypersurfaces within the same family of Calabi-Yau 4-orbifolds may result in different Spin(7)-manifolds.
The mathematical theory of isometric embedding is applied to study the notion of quasilocal mass in general relativity. In particular, I shall report some recent progress of quasilocal mass with reference to a cosmological spacetime, such as the de Sitter or the Anti-de Sitter spacetime, or a blackhole spacetime, such as the Schwarzschild spacetime. This article is based on joint work with Po-Ning Chen, Ye-Kai Wang, and Shing-Tung Yau.
There are two important statements regarding the Trautman-Bondi mass at null infinity: one is the positivity, and the other is the Bondi mass loss formula, which are both global in nature. In this note, we compute the limit of the Wang-Yau quasi-local mass on unit spheres at null infinity of an asymptotically flat spacetime in the Bondi-Sachs coordinates. The quasi-local mass leads to a local description of the radiation that is purely gravitational at null infinity. In particular, the quasi-local mass is evaluated in terms of the news function of the Bondi-Sachs coordinates.
We generalize the Bochner technique to foliations with non-negative transverse Ricci curvature. In particular, we obtain a new vanishing theorem for basic cohomology. Subsequently, we provide two natural applications, namely to degenerate 3-$(α,δ) $-Sasaki and certain Sasaki-$ η$-Einstein manifolds, which arise for example as Boothby-Wang bundles over hyperkähler and Calabi-Yau manifolds, respectively.
