For a domain $Ω$ in a geodesically convex surface, we introduce a scattering energy $\mathcal{E}(Ω)$, which measures the asymmetry of $Ω$ by quantifying its incompatibility with an isometric circle action. We prove several sharp quantitative isoperimetric inequalities involving $\mathcal{E}(Ω)$ and characterize the domains with vanishing scattering energy by their convexity and rotational symmetry. We also give a new proof of the sharp Sobolev inequality for Riemannian surfaces which is independent of the isoperimetric inequality.
Let $(M, g)$ be an asymptotically flat Riemannian $3$-manifold with non-negative scalar curvature and positive mass. We show that each leaf of the canonical foliation through stable constant mean curvature surfaces of the end of $(M, g)$ is uniquely isoperimetric for the volume it encloses.
On a Riemannian manifold with a positive lower bound on the Ricci tensor, the distance of isoperimetric sets from geodesic balls is quantitatively controlled in terms of the gap between the isoperimetric profile of the manifold and that of a round sphere of suitable radius. The deficit between the diameters of the manifold and of the corresponding sphere is bounded likewise. These results are actually obtained in the more general context of (possibly non-smooth) metric measure spaces with curvature-dimension conditions through a quantitative analysis of the transport-rays decompositions obtain…
This paper deals with symmetry phenomena for solutions of the Dirichlet problem involving semilinear PDEs on Riemannian domains. We shall present a rather general framework where the symmetry problem can be formulated and provide some evidence that this framework is completely natural by pointing out some results for stable solutions. The case of manifolds with density, and corresponding weighted Laplacians, is inserted in the picture from the very beginning.
We consider least energy solutions to the nonlinear equation $-Δ_g u=f(r,u)$ posed on a class of Riemannian models $(M,g)$ of dimension $n\ge 2$ which include the classical hyperbolic space $\mathbb H^n$ as well as manifolds with unbounded sectional geometry. Partial symmetry and existence of least energy solutions is proved for quite general nonlinearities $f(r,u)$, where $r$ denotes the geodesic distance from the pole of $M$.
We discuss Lie-Tresse theorem for the pseudogroup of diffeomorphisms acting on the space of (pseudo-)Riemannian metrics, and relate this to existence of Killing vector fields. Then we discuss the impact of symmetry in the general case.
We develop a general structure theory for compact homogeneous Riemannian manifolds in relation to the co-index of symmetry. We will then use these results to classify irreducible, simply connected, compact homogeneous Riemannian manifolds whose co-index of symmetry is less or equal than three. We will also construct many examples which arise from the theory of polars and centrioles in Riemannian symmetric spaces of compact type.
We consider a fixed angle inverse scattering problem in the presence of a known Riemannian metric. First, assuming a no caustics condition, we study the direct problem by utilizing the progressing wave expansion. Under a symmetry assumption on the metric, we obtain uniqueness and stability results in the inverse scattering problem for a potential with data generated by two incident waves from opposite directions. Further, similar results are given using one measurement provided the potential also satisfies a symmetry assumption. This work extends the results of [23,24] from the Euclidean case …
In this paper we provide a new method for establishing the rotational symmetry of the solutions to a couple of very classical overdetermined problems arising in potential theory, in both the exterior and the interior punctured domain. Thanks to a conformal reformulation of the problems, we obtain Riemannian manifolds with zero Weyl tensor satisfying a quasi-Einstein type equation. Exploiting these geometric properties, we conclude via a splitting argument that the manifolds obtained are half cylinders. In turn, the rotational symmetry of the potential is implied. To the authors' knowledge, som…
Sixty years ago, S. B. Myers and N. E. Steenrod ({\it Ann. of Math.} {\bf 40} (1939), 400-416) showed that the isometry group of a Riemannian manifold without boundary has a structure of Lie group. Recently A. V. Bagaev and N. I. Zhukova ({\it Siberian Math. J.} {\bf 48} (2007), 579-592) proved the same result for a Riemannian orbifold. In this paper, we firstly show that the isometry group of a Riemannian manifold $M$ with boundary has dimension at most ${1/2} \dim M (\dim M-1)$. Then we completely classify such Riemannian manifolds with boundary that their isometry groups attain the precedin…
We give a classification of many closed Riemannian manifolds M whose universal cover possesses a nontrivial amount of symmetry. More precisely, we consider closed Riemannian manifolds $M$ such that Isom$(\widetilde{M})$ has noncompact connected components. We prove that in many cases, such a manifold is as a fiber bundle over a locally homogeneous space. This is inspired by work of Eberlein (for nonpositively curved manifolds) and Farb-Weinberger (for aspherical manifolds), and generalizes work of Frankel (for a semisimple group action). As an application, we characterize simply-connected Riem…
We classify positively curved Alexandrov spaces of dimension 4 with an isometric circle action up to equivariant homeomorphism, subject to a certain additional condition on the infinitesimal geometry near fixed points which we conjecture is always satisfied. As a corollary, we also classify positively curved Riemannian orbifolds of dimension 4 with an isometric circle action.
We construct examples of compact and one-ended constant mean curvature surfaces with large mean curvature in Riemannian manifolds with axial symmetry by gluing together small spheres positioned end-to-end along a geodesic. Such surfaces cannot exist in Euclidean space, but we show that the gradient of the ambient scalar curvature acts as a `friction term' which permits the usual analytic gluing construction to be carried out.
It is well-known that the spectrum of a $\text{spin}^{\mathbb{C}}$ Dirac operator on a closed Riemannian $\text{spin}^{\mathbb{C}}$ manifold $M^{2k}$ of dimension $2k$ for $k \in \mathbb{N}$ is symmetric. In this article, we prove that over an odd-dimensional Riemannian product $M_{1}^{2p} \times M_{2}^{2q+1}$ with a product $\text{spin}^{\mathbb{C}}$ structure for $p \geq 1, q \geq 0$, the spectrum of a $\text{spin}^{\mathbb{C}}$ Dirac operator given by a product connection is symmetric if and only if either the $\text{spin}^{\mathbb{C}}$ Dirac spectrum of $M_{2}^{2q+1}$ is symmetric or $(e^{…
All known examples of homogeneous Einstein metrics of negative Ricci curvature can be realized as left-invariant Riemannian metrics on solvable Lie groups. After defining a notion of maximal symmetry among left-invariant Riemannian metrics on a Lie group, we prove that any left-invariant Einstein metric of negative Ricci curvature on a solvable Lie group is maximally symmetric. This theorem is motivated both by the Alekseevskii Conjecture and by the question of stability of Einstein metrics under the Ricci flow. We also address questions of existence of maximally symmetric left-invariant Riema…
We study the size of the isometry group Isom(M, g) of Riemannian manifolds (M, g) as g varies. For M not admitting a circle action, we show that the order of Isom(M, g) can be universally bounded in terms of the bounds on Ricci curvature, diameter, and injectivity radius of M. This generalizes results known for negative Ricci curvature to all manifolds. More generally we establish a similar universal bound on the index of the deck group pi_1(M) in the isometry group Isom(X, g) of the universal cover X in the absence of suitable actions by connected groups. We apply this to characterize locally…
A "hidden symmetry" of a Riemannian manifold M is an isometry of a d-sheeted, 1<d<\infty, Riemannian cover of M which is not the lift of any isometry. In this paper we characterize the locally symmetric metric(s) on a closed, arithmetic manifold as the unique metric with infinitely many hidden symmetries.
We show that any effective isometric torus action of maximal rank on a compact Riemannian manifold with positive (sectional) curvature and maximal symmetry rank, that is, on a positively curved sphere, lens space, complex or real projective space, is equivariantaly diffeomorphic to a linear action. We show that a compact, simply connected Riemannian 4- or 5-manifold of quasipositive curvature and maximal symmetry rank must be diffeomorphic to the 4-sphere, complex projective plane or the 5-sphere.
The Killing operator on a Riemannian manifold is a linear differential operator on vector fields whose kernel provides the infinitesimal Riemannian symmetries. The Killing operator is best understood in terms of its prolongation, which entails some simple tensor identities. These simple identities can be viewed as arising from the identification of certain Lie algebra cohomologies. The point is that this case provides a model for more complicated operators similarly concerned with symmetry.
We study a quantum system in a Riemannian manifold M on which a Lie group G acts isometrically. The path integral on M is decomposed into a family of path integrals on a quotient space Q=M/G and the reduced path integrals are completely classified by irreducible unitary representations of G. It is not necessary to assume that the action of G on M is either free or transitive. Hence the quotient space M/G may have orbifold singularities. Stratification geometry, which is a generalization of the concept of principal fiber bundle, is necessarily introduced to describe the path integral on M/G. Us…
We explicitly describe the length minimizing geodesics for a sub-Riemannian structure of the elliptic type defined on $SL(2, \mathbb{R})$. Our method uses a symmetry reduction which translates the problem into a Riemannian problem on a two dimensional quotient space, on which projections of geodesics can be easily visualized. As a byproduct, we obtain an alternative derivation of the characterization of the cut-locus obtained in \cite{BoscaRossi}. We use classification results for three dimensional right invariant sub-Riemannian structures on Lie groups \cite{AGBD}, \cite{Biggs}, \cite{HB2} to…
We prove that given a minimal hypersurface $Γ$ in a compact Riemannian manifold $M$ without boundary, if all the Jacobi fields of $Γ$ are generated by ambient isometries, then we can find solutions of the Allen-Cahn equation $-\varepsilon^2Δu +W'(u)=0$ on $M$, for sufficiently small $\varepsilon>0$, whose nodal sets converge to $Γ$. This extends the results of Pacard-Ritoré (in the case of closed manifolds and zero mean curvature).
The symmetry-rank of a riemannian manifold is by definition the rank of its isometry group. We determine precisely which smooth closed manifolds admit a positively curved metric with maximal symmetry-rank.
For a pseudo-Riemannian manifold $X$ and a totally geodesic hypersurface $Y$, we consider the problem of constructing and classifying all linear differential operators $\mathcal{E}^i(X) \to \mathcal{E}^j(Y)$ between the spaces of differential forms that intertwine multiplier representations of the Lie algebra of conformal vector fields. Extending the recent results in the Riemannian setting by Kobayashi-Kubo-Pevzner [Lecture Notes in Math.~2170, (2016)], we construct such differential operators and give a classification of them in the pseudo-Riemannian setting where both $X$ and $Y$ are of con…
The "dancing metric" is a pseudo-riemannian metric $\pmb{g}$ of signature $(2,2)$ on the space $M^4$ of non-incident point-line pairs in the real projective plane $\mathbb{RP}^2$. The null-curves of $(M^4,\pmb{g})$ are given by the "dancing condition": the point is moving towards a point on the line, about which the line is turning. We establish a dictionary between classical projective geometry (incidence, cross ratio, projective duality, projective invariants of plane curves...) and pseudo-riemannian 4-dimensional conformal geometry (null-curves and geodesics, parallel transport, self-dual n…
We establish the submaximal symmetry dimension for Riemannian and Lorentzian conformal structures. The proof is based on enumerating all subalgebras of orthogonal Lie algebras of sufficiently large dimension and verifying if they stabilize a non-zero Weyl tensor up to scale. Our main technical tools include Dynkin's classification of maximal subalgebras in complex simple Lie algebras, a theorem of Mostow, and Kostant's Bott-Borel-Weil theorem.
This paper deals with a general method for the reduction of quantum systems with symmetry. For a Riemannian manifold M admitting a compact Lie group G as an isometry group, the quotient space Q = M/G is not a smooth manifold in general but stratified into a collection of smooth manifolds of various dimensions. If the action of the compact group G is free, M is made into a principal fiber bundle with structure group G. In this case, reduced quantum systems are set up as quantum systems on the associated vector bundles over Q = M/G. This idea of reduction fails, if the action of G on M is not fr…
We show that if $g$ is a Riemannian metric on a closed piecewise locally symmetric manifold $M$, then the lift of $g$ to the universal cover $\widetilde{M}$ has a discrete isometry group. We also show that the index $[\Isom(\widetilde{M}): π_1(M)]$ is bounded by a constant independent of $g$.
We study surface energies depending on the mean curvature in total spaces of Killing submersions, which extend the classical notion of Willmore energy. Based on a symmetry reduction procedure, we construct vertical tori critical for these mean curvature energies. These vertical tori are based on closed curves critical for curvature energy functionals in Riemannian 2-space forms. The binormal evolution of these critical curves in Riemannian 3-space forms generates rotational tori solutions for an ample family of Weingarten surfaces. Therefore, we also introduce some correspondence results betwe…
This is the first of two companion papers in which a thorough study of the normal form and the first integrability conditions arising from {\em bi-conformal vector fields} is presented. These new symmetry transformations were introduced in {\em Class. Quantum Grav.} \textbf{21}, 2153-2177 and some of their basic properties were addressed there. In our calculations a new affine connection ({\em bi-conformal connection}) arises quite naturally and this connection enables us to find a local characterization of {\em conformally separable} pseudo-Riemannian manifolds (also called double twisted pro…
In this paper, we give the sharp estimates for the degree of symmetry and the semi-simple degree of symmetry of certain four dimensional fiber bundles by virtue of the rigidity theorem of harmonic maps due to Schoen and Yau. As a corollary of this estimate, we compute the degree of symmetry and the semi-simple degree of symmetry of ${\Bbb C}P^2\times V$, where $V$ is closed smooth manifold admitting a real analytic Riemannian metric of non-positive curvature. In addition, by the Albanese map, we obtain the sharp estimate of the degree of symmetry of a compact smooth manifold with some restrict…
