We show that a bumpy closed Riemannian manifold $(M^{n+1}, g)$ $(3 \leq n+1 \leq 7)$ admits a sequence of connected closed embedded two-sided minimal hypersurfaces whose areas and Morse indices both tend to infinity. This improves a previous result by O. Chodosh and C. Mantoulidis on connected minimal hypersurfaces with arbitrarily large area.
For any smooth Riemannian metric on an $(n+1)$-dimensional compact manifold with boundary $(M,\partial M)$ where $3\leq (n+1)\leq 7$, we establish general upper bounds for the Morse index of free boundary minimal hypersurfaces produced by min-max theory in the Almgren-Pitts setting. We apply our Morse index estimates to prove that for almost every (in the $C^\infty$ Baire sense) Riemannan metric, the union of all compact, properly embedded free boundary minimal hypersurfaces is dense in $M$. If $\partial M$ is further assumed to have a strictly mean convex point, we show the existence of infin…
We develop a bubble-compactness theory for embedded CMC hypersurfaces with bounded index and area inside closed Riemannian manifolds in low dimensions. In particular we show that convergence always occurs with multiplicity one, which implies that the minimal blow-ups (bubbles) are all catenoids. We also provide bounds on the area of separating CMC surfaces of bounded (Morse) index and use this, together with the previous results, to bound their genus.
The Min-max Theory for the area functional, started by Almgren in the early 1960s and greatly improved by Pitts in 1981, was left incomplete because it gave no Morse index estimate for the min-max minimal hypersurface. We advance the theory further and prove the first general Morse index bounds for minimal hypersurfaces produced by it. We also settle the multiplicity problem for the classical case of one-parameter sweepouts.
We show that the Morse index of a closed minimal hypersurface in a four-dimensional Riemannian manifold cannot be bound in terms of the volume and the topological invariants of the hypersurface itself by presenting a method for constructing Riemannian metrics on S^4 that admit embedded minimal hyperspheres of uniformly bounded volume and arbitrarily large Morse index. The phenomena we exhibit are in striking contrast with the three-dimensional compactness results by Choi-Schoen.
By extending and generalising previous work by Ros and Savo, we describe a method to show that the Morse index of every closed minimal hypersurface on certain positively curved ambient manifolds is bounded from below by a linear function of its first Betti number. The technique is flexible enough to prove that such a relation between the index and the topology of minimal hypersurfaces holds, for example, on all compact rank one symmetric spaces, on products of the circle with spheres of arbitrary dimension and on suitably pinched submanifolds of the Euclidean spaces. These results confirm a ge…
In this paper, we give an improved Morse index bound of minimal hypersurfaces from Almgren-Pitts min-max construction in any closed Riemannian manifold $M^{n+1}$ $(n+1 \geq 3$), which generalizes a result by X. Zhou \cite{zhou_multiplicity_2019} for $3 \leq n+1 \leq 7$. The novel techniques are the construction of hierarchical deformations and the restrictive min-max theory. These techniques do not rely on bumpy metrics, and thus could be adapted to many other min-max settings.
In this paper, we prove that the Morse index of a multiplicity one, smooth, min-max minimal hypersurface is generically equal to the dimension of the homology class detected by the families used in the construction. This confirms part of the program (\cite{marques-icm}, \cite{marques-neves-cycles}, \cite{marques-neves-index}, \cite{neves-icm}) proposed by the authors with the goal of developing a Morse theory for the area functional.
In this paper, we prove the existence of the free boundary minimal hypersurface of least area in compact manifolds with boundary. Such hypersurface can be viewed as the ground state of the volume spectrum introduced by Gromov. Moreover, we characterize the orientation and Morse index of them.
We introduce a combinatorial argument to study closed minimal hypersurfaces of bounded area and high Morse index. Let $(M^{n+1},g)$ be a closed Riemannian manifold and $Σ\subset M$ be a closed embedded minimal hypersurface with area at most $A>0$ and with a singular set of Hausdorff dimension at most $n-7$. We show the following bounds: there is $C_A>0$ depending only on $n$, $g$, and $A$ so that $$\sum_{i=0}^n b^i(Σ) \leq C_A \big(1+index(Σ)\big) \quad \text{ if $3\leq n+1\leq 7$},$$ $$\mathcal{H}^{n-7}\big(Sing(Σ)\big) \leq C_A \big(1+index(Σ)\big)^{7/n} \quad \text{ if $n+1\geq 8$},$$ where…
In contrast with the 3-dimensional case (cf. \cite{RaMo}), where rotationally symmetric totally geodesic free boundary minimal surfaces have Morse index one; we prove in this work that the Morse index of a free boundary rotationally symmetric totally geodesic hypersurface of the $n$-dimensional Riemannnian Schwarzschild space with respect to variations that are tangential along the horizon is zero, for $n\geq4$. Moreover, we show that there exist non-compact free boundary minimal hypersurfaces which are not totally geodesic, $n\geq 8$, with Morse index equal to $0$. Also, it is shown that, for…
We generalize a method by L. Ambrozio, A. Carlotto, and B. Sharp to study the Morse index of closed f-minimal hypersurfaces isometrically immersed in a general weighted manifold. The technique permits, in particular, to obtain a linear lower bound on the Morse index via the first Betti number for closed f-minimal hypersurfaces in products of some compact rank one symmetric spaces with an Euclidean factor, endowed with the rigid shrinking gradient Ricci soliton structure. These include, as particular cases, all cylindric shrinking gradient Ricci solitons.
We generalize a result of Giroux which says that a closed surface in a contact $3$-manifold with Morse-Smale characteristic foliation is convex. Specifically, we show that the result holds in contact manifolds of arbitrary dimension. As an application, we show that a particular closed hypersurface introduced by A. Mori is $C^{\infty}$-close to a convex hypersurface.
For 3 $\leq$ n $\leq$ 7, we prove that a bumpy closed Riemannian n-manifold contains a sequence of connected embedded closed minimal surfaces with unbounded area.
In this paper, we study the shape of the min-max minimal hypersurface produced by Almgren-Pitts in \cite{A2}\cite{P} corresponding to the fundamental class of a Riemannian manifold $(M^{n+1}, g)$ of positive Ricci curvature with $2\leq n\leq 6$. We characterize the Morse index, area and multiplicity of this min-max hypersurface. In particular, we show that the min-max hypersurface is either orientable and of index one, or is a double cover of a non-orientable minimal hypersurface with least area among all closed embedded minimal hypersurfaces.
In this article we study the second variation of the energy functional associated to the Allen-Cahn equation on closed manifolds. Extending well known analogies between the gradient theory of phase transitions and the theory of minimal hypersurfaces, we prove the upper semicontinuity of the eigenvalues of the stability operator and consequently obtain upper bounds for the Morse index of limit interfaces which arise from solutions with bounded energy and index without assuming any multiplicity or orientability condition on these hypersurfaces. This extends some recent results of N. Le and F. Hi…
Given a compact Riemannian manifold with boundary, we prove that the limit of a sequence of embedded, almost properly embedded free boundary minimal hypersurfaces, with uniform area and Morse index upper bound, always inherits a non-trivial Jacobi field. To approach this, we prove a one-sided Harnack inequality for minimal graphs on balls with many holes.
In this paper, we study the shape of the min-max minimal hypersurface produced by Almgren-Pitts-Schoen-Simon \cite{AF62, AF65, P81, SS81} in a Riemannian manifold $(M^{n+1}, g)$ of positive Ricci curvature for all dimensions. The min-max hypersurface has a singular set of Hausdorff codimension $7$. We characterize the Morse index, area and multiplicity of this singular min-max hypersurface. In particular, we show that the min-max hypersurface is either orientable and has Morse index one, or is a double cover of a non-orientable stable minimal hypersurface. As an essential technical tool, we pr…
Generalizing earlier work by Ros in ambient dimension three, we prove an affine lower bound for the Morse index of closed minimal hypersurfaces inside a flat torus in terms of their first Betti number (with purely dimensional coefficients).
We characterize the first min-max width of real projective spaces of any dimension. The width is the minimum area over the Clifford hypersurfaces. We also compute the Morse index of the Clifford hypersurfaces in the complex and quaternionic projective spaces.
We compute lower bounds for the Morse index and nullity of constant mean curvature tori of revolution in the three-dimensional unit sphere. In particular, all such tori have index at least five, with index growing at least linearly with respect to the number of the surfaces' bulges, and the index of such tori can be arbitrarily large.
The combined work of Guaraco, Hutchinson, Tonegawa and Wickramasekera has recently produced a new proof of the classical theorem that any closed Riemannian manifold of dimension $n + 1 \geq 3$ contains a minimal hypersurface with a singular set of Hausdorff dimension at most $n-7$. This proof avoids the Almgren--Pitts geometric min-max procedure for the area functional that was instrumental in the original proof, and is instead based on a considerably simpler PDE min-max construction of critical points of the Allen--Cahn functional. Here we prove a spectral lower bound for the hypersurfaces ar…
We establish a min-max estimate on the volume width of a closed Riemannian manifold with nonnegative Ricci curvature. More precisely, we show that every closed Riemannian manifold with nonnegative Ricci curvature admits a PL Morse function whose level set volume is bounded in terms of the volume of the manifold. As a consequence of this sweep-out estimate, there exists an embedded, closed (possibly singular) minimal hypersurface whose volume is bounded in terms of the volume of the manifold.
A classical result by Marston Morse asserts that on some ellipsoids of ${\mathbb R}^3$ there exists exactly 3 closed and simple geodesics. The goal of this presentation is to prove that this rigidity result does not extend to higher dimensions and, more precisely, on any smooth closed riemannian manifod of arbitrary dimension between 3 and 7 there exists infinitely many closed embedded minimal surfaces. We are going to present the origins of this theorem as well as it's proof given recently by Antoine Song.
Strong parallels can be drawn between the theory of minimal hypersurfaces and the theory of phase transitions. Borrowing ideas from the former we extend recent results on the regularity of stable phase transition interfaces to the finite Morse index case. As an application we present a PDE-based proof of the celebrated theorem of Almgren-Pitts, on the existence of embedded minimal hypersurfaces in compact manifolds. We compare our results with other min-max theories.
We prove that, for a generic set of smooth prescription functions $h$ on a closed ambient manifold, there always exists a nontrivial, smooth, closed hypersurface of prescribed mean curvature $h$. The solution is either an embedded minimal hypersurface with integer multiplicity, or a non-minimal almost embedded hypersurface of multiplicity one. More precisely, we show that our previous min-max theory, developed for constant mean curvature hypersurfaces, can be extended to construct min-max prescribed mean curvature hypersurfaces for certain classes of prescription function, including smooth Mor…
We show that the Morse index of a properly embedded free boundary minimal hypersurface in a strictly mean convex domain of the Euclidean space grows linearly with the dimension of its first relative homology group (which is at least as big as the number of its boundary components, minus one). In ambient dimension three, this implies a lower bound for the index of a free boundary minimal surface which is linear both with respect to the genus and the number of boundary components. Thereby, the compactness theorem by Fraser and Li implies a strong compactness theorem for the space of free boundar…
Let $M^{n+1}$ be a closed manifold of dimension $3\leq n+1\leq 7$. We show that for a $C^\infty$-generic metric $g$ on $M$, to any connected, closed, embedded, $2$-sided, stable, minimal hypersurface $S\subset (M,g)$ corresponds a sequence of closed, embedded, minimal hypersurfaces $\{Σ_k\}$ scarring along $S$, in the sense that the area and Morse index of $Σ_k$ both diverge to infinity and, when properly renormalized, $Σ_k$ converges to $S$ as varifolds. We also show that scarring of immersed minimal surfaces along stable surfaces occurs in most closed Riemannian $3$-manifods.
In this paper, we consider immersed two-sided minimal hypersurfaces in $\mathbb{R}^n$ with finite total curvature. We prove that the sum of the Morse index and the nullity of the Jacobi operator is bounded from below by a linear function of the number of ends and the first Betti number of the hypersurface. When $n=4$, we are able to drop the nullity term by a careful study for the rigidity case. Our result is the first effective generalization of Li-Wang. Using our index estimates and ideas from the recent work of Chodosh-Ketover-Maximo, we prove compactness and finiteness results of minimal h…
Let f be a smooth Morse function on an infinite dimensional separable Hilbert manifold, all of whose critical points have infinite Morse index and co-index. For any critical point x choose an integer a(x) arbitrarily. Then there exists a Riemannian structure on M such that the corresponding gradient flow of f has the following property: for any pair of critical points x,y, the unstable manifold of x and the stable manifold of y have a transverse intersection of dimension a(x)-a(y).
We exhibit the first set of examples of non-bumpy metrics on the $(n+1)$-sphere ($2\leq n\leq 6$) in which the varifold associated with the two-parameter min-max construction must be a multiplicity-two minimal $n$-sphere. This is proved by a new area-and-separation estimate for certain minimal hypersurfaces with Morse index two inspired by an early work of Colding-Minicozzi. We also construct non-bumpy projective spaces in which the first min-max hypersurfaces are one-sided, and non-bumpy balls in which the free boundary min-max hypersurfaces are improper.
We study the Morse index of self-shrinkers for the mean curvature flow and, more generally, of $f$-minimal hypersurfaces in a weighted Euclidean space endowed with a convex weight. When the hypersurface is compact, we show that the index is bounded from below by an affine function of its first Betti number. When the first Betti number is large, this improves index estimates known in literature. In the complete non-compact case, the lower bound is in terms of the dimension of the space of weighted square summable $f$-harmonic $1$-forms; in particular, in dimension $2$, the procedure gives an in…
Given a compact Riemannian manifold with boundary, we prove that the space of embedded, which may be improper, free boundary minimal hypersurfaces with uniform area and Morse index upper bound is compact in the sense of smoothly graphical convergence away from finitely many points. We show that the limit of a sequence of such hypersurfaces always inherits a non-trivial Jacobi field when it has multiplicity one. In a forthcoming paper, we will construct Jacobi fields when the convergence has higher multiplicity.
With a view to constructing a Morse/Floer homology theory for CMC hypersurfaces, we prove a compactness result modulo broken trajectories for eternal mean curvature flows with forcing term in compact, hyperbolic manifolds.
We prove that the boundary of the trapped region in an asymptotically Euclidean Riemannian manifold of dimension at least 3 is a stable smooth minimal hypersurface except for a singular set of codimension at least 8.
We prove the multiplicity one theorem for min-max free boundary minimal hypersurfaces in compact manifolds with boundary of dimension between 3 and 7 for generic metrics. To approach this, we develop existence and regularity theory for free boundary hypersurface with prescribed mean curvature, which includes the regularity theory for minimizers, compactness theory, and a generic min-max theory with Morse index bounds. As applications, we construct new free boundary minimal hypersurfaces in the unit balls in Euclidean spaces and self-shrinkers of the mean curvature flows with arbitrarily large …
