We show that for a generic $8$-dimensional Riemannian manifold with positive Ricci curvature, there exists a smooth minimal hypersurface. Without the curvature condition, we show that for a dense set of 8-dimensional Riemannian metrics there exists a minimal hypersurface with at most one singular point. This extends previous work on generic regularity that only dealt with area-minimizing hypersurfaces. These results are a consequence of a more general estimate for a one-parameter min-max minimal hypersurface $Σ\subset (M,g)$ (valid in any dimension): $$\mathcal H^{0} (\mathcal{S}_{nm}(Σ)) +{\rm Index}(Σ) \leq 1$$ where $\mathcal{S}_{nm}(Σ)$ denotes the set of singular points of $Σ$ with a unique tangent cone non-area minimizing on either side.
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.
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 study min-max theory for area functional among hypersurfaces constrained in a smooth manifold with boundary. A Schoen-Simon-type regularity result is proved for integral varifolds which satisfy a variational inequality and restrict to a stable minimal hypersurface in the interior. Based on this, we show that for any admissible family of sweepouts $Π$ in a compact manifold with boundary, there always exists a closed $C^{1,1}$ hypersurface with codimension$\geq 7$ singular set in the interior and having mean curvature pointing outward along boundary realizing the width $\textbf{L}(Π)$.
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 the two theorems of the title, settling two long standing questions in the local theory of singular minimal hypersurfaces. The sharpness of either result is with respect to its hypothesis on the size of the allowable singular sets. The proofs of both theorems rely heavily on the author's recent regularity and compactness theory for stable minimal hypersurfaces, and on earlier work of Ilmanen, Simon and Solomon--White.
In this paper, we study the exterior problem for the maximal surface equation. We obtain the precise asymptotic behavior of the exterior solution at infinity. And we prove that the exterior Dirichlet problem is uniquely solvable given admissible boundary data and prescribed asymptotic behavior at infinity.
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.
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 show that in an $8$-dimensional closed Riemmanian manifold with $C^\infty$-generic metrics, every minimal hypersurface is smooth and nondegenerate. This confirms a full generic regularity conjecture of minimal hypersurfaces in dimension eight. This also enables us to generalize many generic geometric properties of (Almgren-Pitts) min-max minimal hypersurfaces, previously only known in low dimensions, to dimension eight.
We prove that on a compact Riemannian manifold of dimension $3$ or higher, with positive Ricci curvature, the Allen--Cahn min-max scheme (implemented by the first author and N. Wickramasekera in 2020), with prescribing function taken to be a non-zero constant $λ$, produces an embedded hypersurface of constant mean curvature $λ$ ($λ$-CMC). More precisely, we prove that the interface arising from said min-max contains no even-multiplicity minimal hypersurface and no quasi-embedded points (both of these occurrences are in principle possible in the conclusions of the aforementioned work by the fir…
Using the weak solution of Inverse mean curvature flow, we prove the sharp Minkowski-type inequality for outward minimizing hypersurfaces in Schwarzschild space.
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.
We give an a priori bound on the (n-7)-dimensional measure of the singular set for an area-minimizing n-dimensional hypersurface, in terms of the geometry of its boundary.
We prove a compactness result for minimal hypersurfaces with bounded index and volume, which can be thought of as an extension of the compactness theorem of Choi-Schoen (Invent. Math. 1985) to higher dimensions.
We prove existence and stability of smooth entire strictly convex spacelike hypersurfaces of prescribed Gauss curvature in Minkowski space. The proof is based on barrier constructions and local a priori estimates.
In this article we prove that all boundary points of a minimal oriented hypersurface in a Riemannian manifold are regular, that is, in a neighborhood of any boundary point, the minimal surface is a $\mathcal{C}^{1, \frac14}$ submanifold with boundary.
We are concerned with spacelike convex hypersurfaces of positive constant (K-hypersurfaces) or prescribed Gauss curvature in Minkowski space. Our main purpose is to study entire solutions as well as the Dirichlet problem in bounded domains of the related Monge-Ampere equation.
We give a shorter proof of the existence of nontrivial closed minimal hypersurfaces in closed smooth $(n+1)$--dimensional Riemannian manifolds, a theorem proved first by Pitts for $2\leq n\leq 5$ and extended later by Schoen and Simon to any $n$.
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 prove existence and uniqueness of entire spacelike hypersurfaces in the Minkowski space with prescribed negative scalar curvature, and with given values at infinity which stay at a bounded distance of a lightcone.
In this work, we prove the existence of a third embedded minimal hypersurface spanning a closed submanifold $γ$ contained in the boundary of a compact Riemannian manifold with convex boundary, when it is known a priori the existence of two strictly stable minimal hypersurfaces that bound $γ$. In order to do so, we develop min-max methods similar to those of De Lellis and Ramic, references in the paper, adapted to the discrete setting of Almgren and Pitts.
We consider a solution f of a certain Dirichlet Problem on a domain in $S^{(n+1)}$ whose boundary is a minimal hypersurface and we prove a Poincare type inequality for f. One have equality iff Yau's conjecture about the first non-zero eigenvalue of closed minimal hypersurfaces of $S^{(n+1)}$ is true.
We introduce canonical principal parameters on any strongly regular minimal surface in the three dimensional sphere and prove that any such a surface is determined up to a motion by its normal curvature function satisfying the Sinh-Poisson equation. We obtain a classification theorem for bi-umbilical hypersurfaces of type number two. We prove that any minimal hypersurface of type number two with involutive distribution is generated by a minimal surface in the three-dimensional Euclidean space, or in the three dimensional sphere. Thus we prove that the theory of minimal hypersurfaces of type nu…
We show that strictly stable components of Allen-Cahn minimal hypersurfaces always occur with multiplicity one. We also establish the uniqueness of solutions converging to nondegenerate hypersurfaces with multiplicity one. Our results work in all dimensions and without variational assumptions on the Allen-Cahn solutions.
We prove existence in the Minkowski space of entire spacelike hypersurfaces with constant negative scalar curvature and given set of lightlike directions at infinity; we also construct the entire scalar curvature flow with prescribed set of lightlike directions at infinity, and prove that the flow converges to a spacelike hypersurface with constant scalar curvature. The proofs rely on barriers construction and a priori estimates.
The present paper describes a way to relate Martin boundaries on spaces of varying topology. This enables us to approach some detailed inductive analysis of the eigenfunctions of conformal Laplacians on minimal hypersurfaces near their singularities. This can directly be used resp. translated to understand the way how such minimal hypersurfaces inherit positive scalar curvature from their ambience resp. how to smooth singular minimal hypersurfaces to regular hypersurfaces with positive mean curvature.
In this paper, we prove the existence of smooth, entire, strictly convex, spacelike, constant $σ_k$ curvature hypersurfaces with prescribed lightlike directions in Minkowski space. This is equivalent to prove the existence of smooth, entire, strictly convex, spacelike, constant $σ_k$ curvature hypersurfaces with prescribed Gauss map image. We also show that there doesn't exist any entire, convex, strictly spacelike, constant $σ_k$ curvature hypersurfaces. Moreover, we generalize the result in \cite{RWX} and construct strictly convex, spacelike, constant $σ_k$ curvature hypersurface with bounde…
In this paper we construct smooth Riemannian metrics on the sphere which admit smooth Zoll families of minimal hypersurfaces. This generalizes a theorem of Guillemin for the case of geodesics. The proof uses the Nash-Moser Inverse Function Theorem in the tame maps setting of Hamilton. This answers a question of Yau on perturbations of minimal hypersurfaces in positive Ricci curvature. We also consider the case of the projective space and characterize those metrics on the sphere with minimal equators.
We study constant mean curvature spacelike hypersurfaces and in particular maximal hypersurfaces immersed in pp-wave spacetimes satisfying the timelike convergence condition. We prove the non-existence of compact spacelike hypersurfaces whose constant mean curvature is non-zero and also that every compact maximal hypersurface is totally geodesic. Moreover, we give an extension of the classical Calabi-Bernstein theorem to this class of pp-wave spacetimes.
The aim of this work is to study how the asymptotic boundary of a minimal hypersurface in H^nxR determines the behavior of the hypersurface at finite points, in several geometric situations.
In this work we present a new family of properly embedded free boundary minimal hypersurfaces of revolution with circular boundaries in the horizon of the $n$-dimensional Schwarzschild space, $n\geq3$. In particular, we answer a question proposed by O. Chodosh and D. Ketover \cite{CK} on the existence of non-totally geodesic minimal surfaces in the 3-dimensional Schwarzschild space.
In this paper, we develop a min-max theory for the construction of constant mean curvature (CMC) hypersurfaces of prescribed mean curvature in an arbitrary closed manifold. As a corollary, we prove the existence of a nontrivial, smooth, closed, almost embedded, CMC hypersurface of any given mean curvature $c$. Moreover, if $c$ is nonzero then our min-max solution always has multiplicity one.
We construct maximal hypersurfaces with a Neumann boundary condition in Minkowski space via mean curvature flow. In doing this we give general conditions for long time existence of the flow with boundary conditions with assumptions on the curvature of a the Lorentz boundary manifold.
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 will generalize a Maximum Principle at Infinity in the parabolic case given by De Lima [Ann. Global Anal. Geom. ${\bf 20}$, 325-343 2001] and De Lima and Meeks [Indiana Univ. Math. Journal ${\bf 53}$ 5, 1211-1223 2004], for disjoints hypersurfaces of $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$ with bounded mean curvature without restrictions on the Gaussian curvature. We will also extend for hypersurfaces in $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$ a generalization of Hopf's Maximum Principle for hypersurfaces that get close asymptotically.
We consider four-dimensional vacuum spacetimes which admit a nonvanishing spacelike Killing field. The quotient with respect to the Killing action is a three-dimensional quotient spacetime $(M,g)$. We establish several results regarding maximal hypersurfaces (spacelike hypersurfaces of zero mean curvature) in such quotient spacetimes. First, we show that a complete noncompact maximal hypersurface must either be a cylinder $S^1 \times \mathbb{R}$ with flat metric or else conformal to the Euclidean plane $\mathbb{R}^2$. Second, we establish positivity of mass for certain maximal hypersurfaces, r…
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…
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.
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…
Let $(M^{n+1},\partial M,g)$ be a compact manifold with non-negative Ricci curvature, convex boundary and $2\leq n\leq 6$. We show that the min-max minimal hypersurface with respect to one-parameter families of hypersurfaces in $(M,\partial M)$ is orientable, of index one and multiplicity one.
We study the constant mean curvature (CMC) hypersurfaces in hyperbolic space whose asymptotic boundaries are closed codimension-1 submanifolds in sphere at infinity. We consider CMC hypersurfaces as generalizations of minimal hypersurfaces. We naturally generalize some notions of minimal hypersurfaces like being area minimizing, convex hull property, exchange roundoff trick to the CMC hypersurface context. We also give a generic uniqueness result for CMC hypersurfaces in hyperbolic space.
We prove that there are no minimal hypersurfaces properly immersed in any region of the Euclidean space bounded by unstable minimal cones. We also prove the analogous result for $r$-minimal hypersurfaces.
In this work we prove the existence of embedded closed minimal hypersurfaces in non-compact manifolds containing a bounded open subset with smooth and strictly mean-concave boundary and a natural behavior on the geometry at infinity. For doing this, we develop a modified min-max theory for the area functional following Almgren and Pitts' setting, to produce minimal surfaces with intersecting properties.
For almost all Riemannian metrics (in the $C^\infty$ Baire sense) on a closed manifold $M^{n+1}$, $3\leq (n+1)\leq 7$, we prove that the union of all closed, smooth, embedded minimal hypersurfaces is dense. This implies there are infinitely many minimal hypersurfaces thus proving a conjecture of Yau (1982) for generic metrics.
In this paper, we show that the catenoids and the Clifford minimal hypersurfaces are the only complete minimal hypersurfaces satisfying the Simons' equation (3.9) in the space forms.
Let $M^{n+1}$ be an orientable compact Riemannian manifold with positive Ricci curvature. We prove that the Almgren-Pitts width of $M^{n+1}$ is achieved by an orientable index $1$ minimal hypersurface with multiplicity $1$ and optimal regularity. This extends to dimensions $n+1\geq 8$ the results of Ketover-Marques-Neves arXiv:1601.04514v1 [math.DG] and X. Zhou arXiv:1504.00966v2 [math.DG].
We prove qualitative estimates on the total curvature of closed minimal hypersurfaces in closed Riemannian manifolds in terms of their index and area, restricting to the case where the hypersurface has dimension less than seven. In particular, we prove that if we are given a sequence of closed minimal hypersurfaces of bounded area and index, the total curvature along the sequence is quantised in terms of the total curvature of some limit surface, plus a sum of total curvatures of complete properly embedded minimal hypersurfaces in Euclidean space - all of which are finite. Thus, we obtain qual…
We classify minimal hypersurfaces in $R^n \times S^m$, $n,m \geq 2$, which are invariant by the canonical action of $O(n) \times O(m)$. We also construct compact and noncompact examples of invariant hypersurfaces of constant mean curvature. We show that the minimal hypersurfaces and the noncompact constant mean curvature hypersurfaces are all unstable.
In 1960s, Almgren initiated a program to find minimal hypersurfaces in compact manifolds using min-max method. This program was largely advanced by Pitts and Schoen-Simon in 1980s when the manifold has no boundary. In this paper, we finish this program for general compact manifold with nonempty boundary. As a result, we prove the existence of a smooth embedded minimal hypersurface with free boundary in any compact smooth Euclidean domain. An application of our general existence result combined with the work of Marques and Neves shows that for any compact Riemannian manifolds with nonnegative R…
