In a seminal paper published in 1980, P. C. Yang and S.-T. Yau proved an inequality bounding the first eigenvalue of the Laplacian on an orientable Riemannian surface in terms of its genus $γ$ and the area. The equality in Yang-Yau's estimate is attained for $γ=0$ by an old result of J. Hersch and it was recently shown by S. Nayatani and T. Shoda that it is also attained for $γ=2$. In the present article we combine techniques from algebraic geometry and minimal surface theory to show that Yang-Yau's inequality is strict for all genera $γ> 2$. Previously this was only known for $γ=1$. In the second part of the paper we apply Chern-Wolfson's notion of harmonic sequence to obtain an upper bound on the total branching order of harmonic maps from surfaces to spheres. Applications of these results to extremal metrics for eigenvalues are discussed.
This is a review of old and new results and methods related to the Yau conjecture on the zero set of Laplace eigenfunctions. The review accompanies two lectures given at the conference CDM 2018. We discuss the works of Donnelly and Fefferman including their solution of the conjecture in the case of real-analytic Riemannian manifolds. The review exposes the new results for Yau's conjecture in the smooth setting. We try to avoid technical details and emphasize the main ideas of the proof of Nadirashvili's conjecture. We also discuss two-dimensional methods to study zero sets.
We prove inequalities for Laplace eigenvalues of Kaehler manifolds generalising to higher eigenvalues the classical inequality for the first Laplace eigenvalue due to Bourguignon, Li, and Yau in 1994. We also obtain similar inequalities for analytic varieties in Kaehler manifolds.
We study and construct non-abelian hermitian Yang-Mills (HYM) instantons on Calabi-Yau cones. By means of a particular isometry preserving ansatz, the HYM equations are reduced to a novel Higgs-Yang-Mills flow on the Einstein-Kahler base. For any 2d-dimensional Calabi-Yau cone, we find explicit solutions of the flow equations that correspond to non-trivial SU(d) HYM instantons. These can be regarded as deformations of the spin connection of the Calabi-Yau cone.
Let $u$ be a harmonic function in the unit ball $B(0,1) \subset \mathbb{R}^n$, $n \geq 3$, such that $u(0)=0$. Nadirashvili conjectured that there exists a positive constant $c$, depending on the dimension $n$ only, such that $H^{n-1}(\{u=0 \}\cap B) \geq c$. We prove Nadirashvili's conjecture as well as its counterpart on $C^\infty$-smooth Riemannian manifolds. The latter yields the lower bound in Yau's conjecture. Namely, we show that for any compact $C^\infty$-smooth Riemannian manifold $M$ (without boundary) of dimension $n$ there exists $c>0$ such that for any Laplace eigenfunction $φ_λ$ …
In this paper, we prove some analogues of Payne-Polya-Weinberger, Hile-Protter and Yang's inequalities for Dirichlet (discrete) Laplace eigenvalues on any subset in the integer lattice $\Z^n.$ This partially answers a question posed by Chung and Oden.
We consider the minimum Yang-Mills energy on the complete $G_{2}$-manifolds and Calabi-Yau 3-folds,the connection $A$ is a stability Yang-Mills connection on the $G$-bundle $E$.We prove that the connection must be a $G_{2}$-instanton on $G_{2}$-manifold and the bundle is holomorphic on Calabi-Yau 3-fold with holonomy $SU(3)$.
We address the issue why Calabi-Yau manifolds exist with a mirror pair. We observe that the irreducible spinor representation of the Lorentz group Spin(6) requires us to consider the vector spaces of two-forms and four-forms on an equal footing. The doubling of the two-form vector space due to the Hodge duality doubles the variety of six-dimensional spin manifolds. We explore how the doubling is related to the mirror symmetry of Calabi-Yau manifolds. Via the gauge theory formulation of six-dimensional Riemannian manifolds, we show that the curvature tensor of a Calabi-Yau manifold satisfies th…
The paper pursues two connected goals. Firstly, we establish the Li-Yau-Hamilton estimate for the heat equation on a manifold $M$ with nonempty boundary. Results of this kind are typically used to prove monotonicity formulas related to geometric flows. Secondly, we establish bounds for a solution $\nabla(t)$ of the Yang-Mills heat equation in a vector bundle over $M$. The Li-Yau-Hamilton estimate is utilized in the proofs. Our results imply that the curvature of $\nabla(t)$ does not blow up if the dimension of $M$ is less than 4 or if the initial energy of $\nabla(t)$ is sufficiently small.
Let $X$ be a compact connected Kähler--Einstein manifold with $c_1(TX)\, \geq\, 0$. If there is a semistable Higgs vector bundle $(E\,,θ)$ on $X$ with $θ\,\not=\,0$, then we show that $c_1(TX)=0$, any $X$ satisfying this condition is called a Calabi--Yau manifold, and it admits a Ricci--flat Kähler form \cite{Ya}. Let $(E\,,θ)$ be a polystable Higgs vector bundle on a compact Ricci--flat Kähler manifold $X$. Let $h$ be an Hermitian structure on $E$ satisfying the Yang--Mills--Higgs equation for $(E\,,θ)$. We prove that $h$ also satisfies the Yang--Mills--Higgs equation for $(E\,,0)$. A similar…
We first study the degeneration of a sequence of Hermitian-Yang-Mills metrics with respect to a sequence of balanced metrics on a Calabi-Yau threefold $\hat{X}$ that degenerates to the balanced metric constructed by Fu, Li, and Yau on the complement of finitely many (-1,-1)-curves in $\hat{X}$. Then under some assumptions we show the existence of Hermitian-Yang-Mills metrics on bundles over a family of threefolds $X_t$ with trivial canonical bundles obtained by performing conifold transitions on $\hat{X}$.
In this paper, we provide a necessary and sufficient condition for the solvability of the supercritical deformed Hermitian-Yang-Mills equation using integrals on subvarieties. This result confirms the mirror version of the Thomas-Yau conjecture about special Lagrangian submanifolds on Calabi-Yau manifolds.
In recent papers Wu-Yau, Tosatti-Yang and Diverio-Trapani, used some natural differential inequalities for compact Kähler manifolds with quasi negative holomorphic sectional curvature to derive positivity of the canonical bundle. In this note we study the equality case of these inequalities.
We prove an analogue of the Donaldson-Uhlenbeck-Yau theorem for asymptotically cylindrical Kähler manifolds: If $\mathscr{E}$ is a reflexive sheaf over an ACyl Kähler manifold, which is asymptotic to a $μ$-stable holomorphic vector bundle, then it admits an asymptotically translation-invariant protectively Hermitian Yang-Mills metrics (with curvature in $L^2_{\mathrm{loc}}$ across the singular set). Our proof combines the analytic continuity method of Uhlenbeck and Yau [UY86] with the geometric regularization scheme introduced by Bando and Siu [BS94].
We prove an $L^{2}$ energy gap result for Yang-Mills connections on principal $G$-bundles over compact Kähler surfaces with positive scalar curvature. We prove related results for compact simply-connected Calabi-Yau $2$-folds.
We prove a priori estimates for a generalised Monge-Ampère PDE with "non-constant coefficients" thus improving a result of Sun in the Kähler case. We apply this result to the deformed Hermitian Yang-Mills (dHYM) equation of Jacob-Yau to obtain an existence result and a priori estimates for some ranges of the phase angle assuming the existence of a subsolution. We then generalise a theorem of Collins-Szèkelyhidi on toric varieties and use it to address a conjecture of Collins-Jacob-Yau.
We prove inequalities for Laplace eigenvalues on Riemannian manifolds generalising to higher eigenvalues two classical inequalities for the first Laplace eigenvalue - the inequality in terms of the $L^2$-norm of mean curvature, due to Reilly in 1977, and the inequality in terms of conformal volume, due to Li and Yau in 1982, and El Soufi and Ilias in 1986. We also obtain bounds for the number of negative eigenvalues of Schrödinger operators, and in particular, index bounds for minimal hypersurfaces in spheres.
The deformed Hermitian-Yang-Mills equation is a complex Hessian equation on compact Kähler manifolds that corresponds to the special Lagrangian equation in the context of the Strominger-Yau-Zaslow mirror symmetry. Recently, Chen proved that the existence of the solution is equivalent to a uniform stability condition in terms of holomorphic intersection numbers along test families. In this paper, we establish an analogous stability result not involving a uniform constant in accordance with a recent work on the $J$-equation by Song, which makes further progress toward Collins-Jacob-Yau's origina…
Since Li and Yau obtained the gradient estimate for the heat equation, related estimates have been extensively studied. With additional curvature assumptions, matrix estimates that generalize such estimates have been discovered for various time-dependent settings, including the heat equation on a Kähler manifold, Ricci flow, Kähler-Ricci flow, and mean curvature flow, to name a few. As an elliptic analogue, Colding proved a sharp gradient estimate for the Green function on a manifold with nonnegative Ricci curvature. In this paper we prove a related matrix inequality on manifolds with suitable…
In 1980 Yang and Yau~\cite{YY} proved the celebrated upper bound for the first eigenvalue on an orientable surface of genus $γ$. Later Li and Yau~\cite{LY} gave a simple proof of this bound by introducing the concept of conformal volume of a Riemannian manifold. In the same paper they proposed an approach for obtaining a similar estimate for non-orientable surfaces. In the present paper we formalize their argument and improve the bounds stated in~\cite{LY}.
We establish inequalities for the eigenvalues of Schrödinger operators on compact submanifolds (possibly with nonempty boundary) of Euclidean spaces, of spheres, and of real, complex and quaternionic projective spaces, which are related to inequalities for the Laplacian on Euclidean domains due to Payne, Pólya, and Weinberger and to Yang, but which depend in an explicit way on the mean curvature. In later sections, we prove similar results for Schrödinger operators on homogeneous Riemannian spaces and, more generally, on any Riemannian manifold that admits an eigenmap into a sphere, as well as…
We find coordinates, the metric tensor, the inverse metric tensor and the Laplace-Beltrami operator for the orbit space of Hamiltonian SU(2) gauge theory on a finite, rectangular lattice. This is done using a complete axial gauge fixing. The Gribov problem can be completely solved, with no remaining gauge ambiguities.
We prove universal inequalities for Laplacian eigenvalues with Dirichlet boundary conditions on subsets of certain discrete groups. The study of universal inequalities on Riemannian manifolds was initiated by Weyl, Polya, Yau, and others. Here we focus on a version by Cheng and Yang. Specifically, we prove Yang-type universal inequalities for Cayley graphs of finitely generated amenable groups, as well as for the d-regular tree (simple random walk on the free group).
This is the first step in an attempt at a deformation theory for $G_{2}-$instantons with $1-$dimensional conic singularities. Under a set of model data, the linearization yields a self-adjoint first order elliptic operator $P$ on a certain bundle over $\mathbb{S}^{5}$. As a dimension reduction, the operator $P$ also arises from Hermitian Yang-Mills connections with isolated conic singularities on a Calabi-Yau $3$-fold. Using the Quaternion structure in the Sasakian geometry of $\mathbb{S}^{5}$, we describe the set of all eigenvalues of $P$ (denoted by $Spec P$). We show that $SpecP$ consists o…
Recently, Wu-Yau and Tosatti-Yang established the connection between the negativity of holomorphic sectional curvatures and the positivity of canonical bundles for compact Kähler manifolds. In this short note, we give anothe proof of their theorems by using the Kähler-Ricci flow.