In this paper we study the area minimizing problem in some kinds of conformal cones. This concept is a generalization of the cones in Eulcidean spaces and the cylinders in product manifolds. We define a non-closed-minimal (NCM) condition for bounded domains. Under this assumption and other necessary conditions we establish the existence of bounded minimal graphs in mean convex conformal cones. Moreover those minimal graphs are the solutions to corresponding area minizing problems. We can solve the area minimizing problem in non-mean convex translating conformal cones if these cones are contained in a larger mean convex conformal cones with the NCM assumption. We give examples to illustrate that this assumption can not be removed for our main results.
We consider $2$-dimensional integer rectifiable currents which are almost area minimizing and show that their tangent cones are everywhere unique. Our argument unifies a few uniqueness theorems of the same flavor, which are all obtained by a suitable modification of White's original theorem for area minimizing currents in the euclidean space. This note is also the first step in a regularity program for semicalibrated $2$-dimensional currents and spherical cross sections of $3$-dimensional area minimizing cones.
We prove that tangent cones at singular boundary points of a two-dimensional current almost area minimizing are unique. Following the ideas exposed by White in [8], the result is achieved by combining a suitable epiperimetric inequality and an almost-monotonicity formula for the mass at boundary points.
In this paper we continue to study the connection among the area minimizing problem, certain area functional and the Dirichlet problem of minimal surface equations in a class of conformal cones with a similar motivation from \cite{GZ20}. These cones are certain generalizations of hyperbolic spaces. We describe the structure of area minimizing $n$-nteger multiplicity currents in bounded $C^2$ conformal cones with prescribed $C^1$ graphical boundary via a minimizing problem of these area functionals. As an application we solve the corresponding Dirichlet problem of minimal surface equations unde…
We give a proof by foliation that the cones over $\mathbb{S}^k \times \mathbb{S}^l$ minimize parametric elliptic functionals for each $k,\,l \geq 1$. We also analyze the behavior at infinity of the leaves in the foliations. This analysis motivates conjectures related to the existence and growth rates of nonlinear entire solutions to equations of minimal surface type that arise in the study of such functionals.
We prove a new logarithmic epiperimetric inequality for multiplicity-one stationary cones with isolated singularity by flowing in the radial direction any given trace along appropriately chosen directions. In contrast to previous epiperimetric inequalities for minimal surfaces (e.g. those of Reifenberg, Taylor and White), we need no a priori assumptions on the structure of the cone (e.g. integrability). Moreover, if the cone is integrable (not only through rotations), we recover the classical epiperimetric inequality. As a consequence we deduce a new $\varepsilon$-regularity result for almost …
Associated with isoparametric foliations of unit spheres, there are two classes of minimal surfaces $-$ minimal isoparametric hypersurfaces and focal submanifolds. By virtue of their rich structures, we find new series of minimizing cones. They are cones over focal submanifolds and cones over suitable products among these two classes. Except in low dimensions, all such cones are shown minimizing.
We show that every area-minimizing hypercone and every oriented Lawlor cone in [Law91] can be realized as a tangent cone at a point of some homologically area-minimizing singular compact submanifold. In particular this generalizes the result of N. Smale [Sma99].
Hardt-Simon proved that every area-minimizing hypercone $\mathbf{C}$ having only an isolated singularity fits into a foliation of $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$ by smooth, area-minimizing hypersurfaces asymptotic to $\mathbf{C}$. In this paper we prove that if a stationary $n$-varifold $M$ in the unit ball $B_1 \subset \mathbb{R}^{n+1}$ lies sufficiently close to a minimizing quadratic cone (for example, the Simons' cone $\mathbf{C}^{3,3}$), then $\mathrm{spt} M \cap B_{1/2}$ is a $C^{1,α}$ perturbation of either the cone itself, or some leaf of its associated foliation. In particular, we show that singul…
It has been 40 years since Lawson and Osserman introduced the three minimal cones associated with Dirichlet problems in their 1977 Acta paper [LO77]. The first cone was shown area-minimizing by Harvey and Lawson in the celebrated paper [HL82]. In this paper, we confirm that the other two are also area-minimizing. In fact, we show that every Lawson-Osserman cone of type (n, p, 2) constructed in [XYZ] is area-minimizing.
We prove that the conformal immersions of complex two tori into $S^3$ which locally minimize their conformal volume in their conformal class all satisfy some elliptic PDE. We prove that they are either minimal tori, CMC flat tori, elliptic conformally constrained minimal tori or critical point of the area under some fixed conformally congruent area. On the way to establish this result we prove that tori which are critical points of the area for perturbations within a given conformal class and which are degenerate points of the conformal class mapping - i.e. isothermic - are either minimal surf…
The Fine Structure of the Singular Set of Area-Minimizing Integral Currents III: Frequency 1 Flat Singular Points and $\mathcal{H}^{m-2}$-a.e. Uniqueness of Tangent Cones
This paper is the continuation of the previous one \cite{Cui2021}, where we re-proved the area-minimization of cones over Grassmannians of $n$-planes $G(n,m;\mathbb{F})(\mathbb{F}=\mathbb{R},\mathbb{C},\mathbb{H})$, Cayley plane $\mathbb{O}P^2$ from the point view of Hermitian orthogonal projectors, and gave area-minimizing cones associated to oriented real Grassmannians $\widetilde{G}(n,m;\mathbb{R})$. In this paper, we make a further step on showing that the cones, of dimension no less than $\mathbf{8}$, over minimal products of $G(n,m;\mathbb{F})$ are area-minimizing. Moreover, those cones …
We show that any minimizing hypercone can be perturbed into one side to a properly embedded smooth minimizing hypersurface in the Euclidean space, and every viscosity mean convex cone admits a properly embedded smooth mean convex self-expander asymptotic to it near infinity. These two together confirm a conjecture of Lawson \cite[Problem 5.7]{Brothers86_OpenProblems}.
We consider the class of all conformal mappings from a compact Riemann surface into the threedimensional or fourdimensional Euclidean space. A sequence in this class with bounded Willmore functional is shown to have a sequence of conformal transformations of the target space, such that a subsequence of the transformed sequence converges. This implies that there exists a smooth conformal mapping, which minimizes the Willmore functional in this class. For this purpose we extend the quaternionic function theory of Pedit and Pinkall to square integrable Hopf fields. In particular, we proof the Plu…
In this paper we show that every area minimizing cone C^{n-1} in R^n can be approximated by entirely smooth area minimizing hypersurfaces. This extensively uses hyperbolic unfoldings of such hypersurfaces and the resulting potential theory for the Jacobi field operator. Applications include the splitting theorem in scalar curvature geometry saying that any (n-1)-dim. homology class of a compact manifold M^n with positive scalar curvature can be represented by a smooth (!) compact hypersurface that admits a positive scalar curvature metric.
In this paper, we study self-expanding solutions for mean curvature flows and their relationship to minimal cones in Euclidean space. In [18], Ilmanen proved the existence of self-expanding hypersurfaces with prescribed tangent cones at infinity. If the cone is $C^{3,α}$-regular and mean convex (but not area-minimizing), we can prove that the corresponding self-expanding hypersurfaces are smooth, embedded, and have positive mean curvature everywhere (see Theorem 1.1). As a result, for regular minimal but not area-minimizing cones we can give an affirmative answer to a problem arisen by Lawson …
We prove that the density of a topologically nontrivial, area-minimizing hypercone with an isolated singularity must be greater than the square root of 2. The Simons' cones show that this is the best possible constant. If one of the components of the complement of the cone has nontrivial kth homotopy group, we prove a better bound in terms of k; that bound is also best possible. The proofs use mean curvature flow.
We study the problem of existence of regions separating a given amount of volume with the least possible perimeter inside a Euclidean cone. Our main result shows that nonexistence for a given volume implies that the isoperimetric profile of the cone coincides with the one of the half-space. This allows us to give some criteria ensuring existence of isoperimetric regions: for instance, local convexity of the cone at some boundary point. We also characterize which are the stable regions in a convex cone, i.e., second order minima of perimeter under a volume constraint. From this it follows that …
On any closed Riemannian manifold of dimension $n\geq 3$, we prove that if a function nearly minimizes the Yamabe energy, then the corresponding conformal metric is close, in a quantitative sense, to a minimizing Yamabe metric in the conformal class. Generically, this distance is controlled quadratically by the Yamabe energy deficit. Finally, we produce an example for which this quadratic estimate is false.
It is a well-known fact that there exists a standard minimal embedding map for the Grassmannians of $n$-planes $G(n,m;\mathbb{F})(\mathbb{F}=\mathbb{R},\mathbb{C},\mathbb{H})$ and Cayley plane $\mathbb{O}P^2$ into Euclidean spheres, then an natural question is that if the cones over these embedded Grassmannians are area-minimizing? In this paper, detailed descriptions for this embedding map are given from the point view of Hermitian orthogonal projectors which can be seen as an direct generalization of Gary R. Lawlor's(\cite{lawlor1991sufficient}) original considerations for the case of real p…
It is known that a geometric measurement of the light cones of supernovae determines the conformal class of the visible part of the spacetime. The conformal factor is physically meaningful but cannot be determined geometrically by anything with zero mass, such as the photon. We show that measuring the neutrino cones in addition to light cones completely removes this gauge freedom. We describe the physical model in great detail, including why ultrarelativistic neutrinos are the only option.
Locally stable minimal hypersurface could have singularities in dimension $\geq 7$ in general, locally modeled on stable and area-minimizing cones in the Euclidean spaces. In this paper, we present different aspects of how these singularities may affect the local behavior of minimal hypersurfaces. First, given a non-degenerate minimal hypersurface with strictly stable and strictly minimizing tangent cone at each singular point, under any small perturbation of the metric, we show the existence of a nearby minimal hypersurface under new metric. For a generic choice of perturbation direction, we …
We prove a classification theorem for conformal maps with respect to the control distance generated by a system of diagonal vector fields. It turns out that all such maps can be obtained as compositions of suitable dilations, inversions and isometries. We also classify all umbilical surfaces of the underlying metric.
This is a very brief report on recent developments on the Dirichlet problem for the minimal surface system and minimal cones in Euclidean spaces. We shall mainly focus on two directions: (1) Further systematic developments after Lawson-Osserman's paper \cite{l-o} on the Dirichlet problem for minimal graphs of high codimensions. Aspects including non-existence, non-uniqueness and irregularity properties of solutions have been explored from different points of view. (2) Complexities and varieties of area-minimizing cones in high codimensions. We shall mention interesting history and exhibit some…
We extend the results of Hardt and Simon on area-minimizing cones to prove that isolated singularities of stationary one-sided area-minimizing hypersurfaces can be locally perturbed away on the side that they are minimizing.
We obtain a characterization of the proximal normal cone to a prox-regular subset of a Riemannian manifold. Moreover, some properties of Bouligand tangent cones to prox-regular sets are described. We prove that for a prox-regular subset S of a Riemannian manifold, the metric projection P_S to S is locally Lipschitz on an open neighborhood of S and it is directionally differentiable at boundary points of S. Finally, a necessary condition for a curve to be a minimizing curve in a prox-regular set is derived.
We give partial boundary regularity for co-dimension one absolutely area-minimizing currents at points where the boundary consists of a sum of $C^{1,α}$ submanifolds, possibly with multiplicity, meeting tangentially, given that the current has a tangent cone supported in a hyperplane with constant orientation vector; this partial regularity is such that we can conclude the tangent cone is unique. The proof follows closely the boundary regularity result given by Hardt and Simon in [9].
We study the formation of singularities for the mean curvature flow of monotone Lagrangians in $\C^n$. More precisely, we show that if singularities happen before a critical time then the tangent flow can be decomposed into a finite union of area-minimizing Lagrangian cones (Slag cones). When $n=2$, we can improve this result by showing that connected components of the rescaled flow converge to an area-minimizing cone, as opposed to possible non-area minimizing union of Slag cones. In the last section, we give specific examples for which such singularity formation occurs.
We give partial boundary regularity for co-dimension one absolutely area-minimizing currents at points where the boundary consists of a sum of $C^{1,α}$ submanifolds, possibly with multiplicity, meeting tangentially, given that the current has a tangent cone supported in a hyperplane with constant orientation vector; this partial regularity is such that we can conclude the tangent cone is unique. The proof closely follows that giving the boundary regularity result of Hardt and Simon.
We adapt the method of Simon [JDG '93] to prove a $C^{1,α}$-regularity theorem for minimal varifolds which resemble a cone $\bf{C}_0^2$ over an equiangular geodesic net. For varifold classes admitting a "no-hole" condition on the singular set, we additionally establish $C^{1,α}$-regularity near the cone $\bf{C}_0^2 \times \mathbb R^m$. Combined with work of Allard [Ann. of Math. '72], Simon [JDG '93], Taylor [Ann. of Math. '76], and Naber-Valtorta [Ann. of Math. '17], our result implies a $C^{1,α}$-structure for the top three strata of minimizing clusters and size-minimizing currents, and a Li…
Quantitative Stability for Minimizing Yamabe Metrics with minimal boundary
Institut de Mathématiques de Toulouse, Université Paul Sabatier（图卢兹数学研究所，保罗·萨巴蒂尔大学）；School of Mathematical Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学数学科学学院）
We analyze the asymptotic behavior of a $2$-dimensional integral current which is almost minimizing in a suitable sense at a singular point. Our analysis is the second half of an argument which shows the discreteness of the singular set for the following three classes of $2$-dimensional currents: area minimizing in Riemannian manifolds, semicalibrated and spherical cross sections of $3$-dimensional area minimizing cones.
In this paper, we establish a framework for the analysis of linear parabolic equations on conical surfaces and use them to study the conical Ricci flow. In particular, we prove the long time existence of the conical Ricci flow for general cone angle and show that this solution has the optimal regularity, namely, the time derivatives of the conformal factor are bounded and for each fixed time, the conformal factor has an explicit asymptotic expansion near the cone points.
We present an elementary criterion to show the length-minimizing property of geodesics for a large class of conformal metrics. In particular, we prove the length-minimizing property of level curves of harmonic functions and the length-minimizing property of a family of the conic sections with the eccentricity $\varepsilon$ in the upper half plane endowed with the conformal metric $ \left( {\varepsilon}^{2} + \frac{1}{\;{y^2} \;} \right) \left(dx^{2} + dy^{2} \right)$.
For a given finite subset $S$ of a compact Riemannian manifold $(M,g)$ whose Schouten curvature tensor belongs to a given cone, we establish a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence and uniqueness of a conformal metric on $M \setminus S$ such that each point of $S$ corresponds to an asymptotically flat end and that the Schouten tensor of the conformal metric belongs to the boundary of the given cone. As a by-product, we define a purely local notion of Ricci lower bounds for continuous metrics which are conformal to smooth metrics and prove a corresponding volume comparison theore…
We construct a branched center manifold in a neighborhood of a singular point of a $2$-dimensional integral current which is almost minimizing in a suitable sense. Our construction is the first half of an argument which shows the discreteness of the singular set for the following three classes of $2$-dimensional currents: area minimizing in Riemannian manifolds, semicalibrated and spherical cross sections of $3$-dimensional area minimizing cones.
First we construct minimal hypersurfaces $M\subset\mathbf{R}^{n+1}$ in a neighborhood of the origin, with an isolated singularity but cylindrical tangent cone $C\times \mathbf{R}$, for any strictly minimizing strictly stable cone $C$ in $\mathbf{R}^n$. We show that many of these hypersurfaces are area minimizing. Next, we prove a strong unique continuation result for minimal hypersurfaces $V$ with such a cylindrical tangent cone, stating that if the blowups of $V$ centered at the origin approach $C\times \mathbf{R}$ at infinite order, then $V = C\times\mathbf{R}$ in a neighborhood of the origi…
We construct Lipschitz $Q$-valued functions which approximate carefully integral currents when their cylindrical excess is small and they are almost minimizing in a suitable sense. This result is used in two subsequent works to prove the discreteness of the singular set for the following three classes of $2$-dimensional integral currents: area minimizing in Riemannian manifolds, semicalibrated and spherical cross sections of $3$-dimensional area minimizing cones.
In the literature different concepts of compatibility between a projective structure and a conformal structure on a differentiable manifold are used. In particular compatibility in the sense of Weyl geometry is slightly more general than compatibility in the Riemannian sense. An often cited paper [Ehlers-Pirani-Schild:1972] introduces still another criterion which is natural from the physical point of view: every light like geodesics of of the conformal structure is a geodesics of the projective structure. Their claim that this type of compatibility is sufficient for introducing a Weylian metr…
We study minimal hypersurfaces in manifolds of non-negative Ricci curvature, Euclidean volume growth and quadratic curvature decay at infinity. By comparison with capped spherical cones, we identify a precise borderline for the Ricci curvature decay. Above this value, no complete area-minimizing hypersurfaces exist. Below this value, in contrast, we construct examples.
We prove that a certain class of ALE spaces always has a Kahler conformal compactification, and moreover provide explicit formulas for the conformal factor and the Kahler potential of said compactification. We then apply this to give a new and simple construction of the canonical Bochner-Kähler metric on certain weighted projective spaces, and also to explicitly construct a family Kahler edge-cone metrics on $\mathbb{CP}^2$, with singular set $\mathbb{CP}^1$, having cone angles $2πβ$ for all $β>0$. We conclude by discussing how these results can be used to obtain certain well-known Einstein me…
