In this expository note we describe important examples of Lagrangian mean curvature flow in $\mathbb{C}^2$ which are invariant under a circle action. Through these examples, we see compact and non-compact situations, long-time existence, singularities forming via explicit models, and significant objects in Riemannian and symplectic geometry, including the Clifford torus, Chekanov torus, Whitney sphere and Lawlor necks.
We prove an equivariant deformation result for Hamiltonian stationary Lagrangian submanifolds of a Kahler manifold, with respect to deformations of its metric and almost complex structure that are compatible with an isometric Hamiltonian group action. This yields existence of Hamiltonian stationary Lagrangian submanifolds in possibly non-Kahler symplectic manifolds whose metric is arbitrarily close to a Kahler metric.
In this note, we present a new look at translationally equivariant minimal Lagrangian surfaces in the complex projective plane via the loop group method.
We study almost-calibrated, $O(n)$-equivariant Lagrangian mean curvature flow in $\mathbb{C}^n$, and prove structural theorems about the Type I and Type II blowups of finite-time singularities. In particular, we prove that any Type I blowup of such a flow must be a special Lagrangian pair of transversely intersecting planes, any Type II blowup must be the Lawlor neck with the same asymptotes, and these blowups are independent of the choice of rescaling. We also give a partial classification of when singularities occur in the equivariant case, and examine the intermediate scales between the Typ…
Given any embedded Lagrangian on a four dimensional compact Calabi-Yau, we find another Lagrangian in the same Hamiltonian isotopy class which develops a finite time singularity under mean curvature flow. This contradicts a weaker version of the Thomas-Yau conjecture regarding long time existence and convergence of Lagrangian mean curvature flow.
The Gibbons-Hawking ansatz provides a large family of circle-invariant hyperkaehler 4-manifolds, and thus Calabi-Yau 2-folds. In this setting, we prove versions of the Thomas conjecture on existence of special Lagrangian representatives of Hamiltonian isotopy classes of Lagrangians, and the Thomas-Yau conjecture on long-time existence of the Lagrangian mean curvature flow. We also make observations concerning closed geodesics, curve shortening flow and minimal surfaces.
In this paper we continue our study of equivariant minimal Lagrangian surfaces in $\mathbb{C} P^2$, characterizing the rotationally equivariant cases and providing explicit formulae for relevant geometric quantities of translationally equivariant minimal Lagrangian surfaces in terms of Weierstrass elliptic functions.
We present a deformation for constant mean curvature tori in the 3-sphere. We show that the moduli space of equivariant constant mean curvature tori in the 3-sphere is connected, and we classify the minimal, the embedded, and the Alexandrov embedded tori therein. We conclude with an instability result.
In this paper, we derive a priori interior Hessian estimates for Lagrangian mean curvature equation if the Lagrangian phase is supercritical and has bounded second derivatives.
It is shown that an equivariant Lagrangian sphere with a positivity condition on its Ricci curvature develops a type-II singularity under the Lagrangian mean curvature flow that rescales to the product of a grim reaper with a flat Lagrangian subspace. In particular this result applies to the Whitney spheres.
We establish the longtime existence and convergence results of the mean curvature flow of entire Lagrangian graphs in Pseudo-Euclidean space which is related to Logarithmic gradient flow.
Ancient solutions of Lagrangian mean curvature flow in C^n naturally arise as Type II blow-ups. In this extended note we give structural and classification results for such ancient solutions in terms of their blow-down and, motivated by the Thomas-Yau Conjecture, focus on the almost calibrated case. In particular, we classify Type II blow-ups of almost calibrated Lagrangian mean curvature flow when the blow-down is a pair of transverse planes or, when n=2, a multiplicity two plane. We also show that the Harvey-Lawson Clifford torus cone in C^3 cannot arise as the blow-down of an almost calibra…
This article studies the mean curvature flow of Lagrangian submanifolds. In particular, we prove the following global existence and convergence theorem: if the potential function of a Lagrangian graph in T^{2n} is convex, then the flow exists for all time and converges smoothly to a flat Lagrangian submanifold.
In this note we prove a simple relation between the mean curvature form, symplectic area, and the Maslov class of a Lagrangian immersion in a Kähler-Einstein manifold. An immediate consequence is that in Kähler-Einstein manifolds with positive scalar curvature, minimal Lagrangian immersions are monotone.
In this paper, for any compact Lie group $G$, we show that the space of $G$-invariant Riemannian metrics with positive scalar curvature (PSC) on any closed three-manifold is either empty or contractible. In particular, we prove the generalized Smale conjecture for spherical three-orbifolds. Moreover, for connected $G$, we make a classification of all PSC $G$-invariant three-manifolds.
In this paper, we prove interior gradient estimates for the Lagrangian mean curvature equation, if the Lagrangian phase is critical and supercritical and $C^{2}$. Combined with the a priori interior Hessian estimates proved in [Bha21, Bha22], this solves the Dirichlet boundary value problem for the critical and supercritical Lagrangian mean curvature equation with $C^0$ boundary data. We also provide a uniform gradient estimate for lower regularity phases that satisfy certain additional hypotheses.
We show Bernstein type results for the entire self-shrinking solutions to Lagrangian mean curvature flow in $(\mathbb{R}^n\times\mathbb{R}^n, g_τ)$. The proofs rely on a priori estimates and barriers construction.
In this paper, we give some convergence results of Lagrangian mean curvature flow under some stability conditions in a general Kähler-Einstein manifold. In particular, we prove that the flow will converge if the initial data is some small perturbation of stable minimal Lagrangian submanifold in a Kähler-Einstein manifold.
In this paper, we construct various examples of Lagrangian mean curvature flows in Calabi-Yau manifolds, using moment maps for actions of abelian Lie groups on them. The examples include Lagrangian self-shrinkers and translating solitons in the Euclidean spaces. Moreover, our method can be applied to construct examples of Lagrangian mean curvature flows in non-flat Calabi-Yau manifolds. In particular, we describe Lagrangian mean curvature flows in 4-dimensional Ricci-flat ALE spaces in detail and investigate their singularities.
We define the notion of special Lagrangian curvature, showing how it may be interpreted as an alternative higher dimensional generalisation of two dimensional Gaussian curvature. We obtain first a local rigidity result for this curvature when the ambiant manifold has negative sectional curvature. We then show how this curvature relates to the canonical special Legendrian structure of spherical subbundles of the tangent bundle of the ambiant manifold. This allows us to establish a strong compactness result. In the case where the special Lagrangian angle equals $(n-1)π/2$, we obtain compactness …
This is a sequel to [1] and [2], which study the second boundary problem for special Lagrangian curvature potential equation. As consequences, we obtain the existence and uniqueness of the smooth uniformly convex solution by the method of continuity through carrying out a-priori estimate on the solutions.
We prove some non-existence theorems for translating solutions to Lagrangian mean curvature flow. More precisely, we show that translating solutions with an $L^2$ bound on the mean curvature are planes and that almost-calibrated translating solutions which are static are also planes. Recent work of D. Joyce, Y.-I. Lee, and M.-P. Tsui, shows that these conditions are optimal.
In this note, we study equivariant versions of Stolz' $R$-groups, the positive scalar curvature structure groups $R^{\rm spin}_n(X)^G$, for proper actions of discrete groups $G$. We define the concept of a fundamental groupoid functor for a $G$-space, encapsulating all the fundamental group information of all the fixed point sets and their relations. We construct classifying spaces for fundamental groupoid functors. As a geometric result, we show that Stolz' equivariant $R$-group $R^{\rm spin}_n(X)^G$ depends only on the fundamental groupoid functor of the reference space $X$. The proof covers…
We review some recent results on the mean curvature flows of Lagrangian submanifolds from the perspective of geometric partial differential equations. These include global existence and convergence results, characterizations of first-time singularities, and constructions of self-similar solutions.
In this paper we mainly study the type II singularities of the mean curvature flow from a symplectic surface or from an almost calibrated Lagrangian surface in a K ähler-Einstein surface. We show the relation between the maximum of the Kähler angle and the maximum of $|H|^2$ on the limit flow.
We consider a short time existence problem motivated by a conjecture of Joyce. Specifically we prove that given any compact Lagrangian $L\subset \mathbb{C}^n$ with a finite number of singularities, each asymptotic to a pair of non-area-minimising, transversally intersecting Lagrangian planes, there is a smooth Lagrangian mean curvature flow existing for some positive time, that attains $L$ as $t \searrow 0$ as varifolds, and smoothly locally away from the singularities.
We construct many self-similar and translating solitons for Lagrangian mean curvature flow, including self-expanders and translating solitons with arbitrarily small oscillation on the Lagrangian angle. Our translating solitons play the same role as cigar solitons in Ricci flow, and are important in studying the regularity of Lagrangian mean curvature flow. Given two transverse Lagrangian planes R^n in C^n with sum of characteristic angles less than pi, we show there exists a Lagrangian self-expander asymptotic to this pair of planes. The Maslov class of these self-expanders is zero. Thus they …
We provide several results on the existence of metrics of non-negative sectional curvature on vector bundles over certain cohomogeneity one manifolds and homogeneous spaces up to suitable stabilization. Beside explicit constructions of the metrics, this is achieved by identifying equivariant structures upon these vector bundles via a comparison of their equivariant and non-equivariant K-theory. For this, in particular, we transcribe equivariant K-theory to equivariant rational cohomology and investigate surjectivity properties of induced maps in the Borel fibration via rational homotopy theory…
We consider a fully nonlinear parabolic equation with nonlinear Neumann type boundary condition, and show that the longtime existence and convergence of the flow. Finally we apply this study to the boundary value problem for minimal Lagrangian graphs.
We study singularities of Lagrangian mean curvature flow in $\C^n$ when the initial condition is a zero-Maslov class Lagrangian. We start by showing that, in this setting, singularities are unavoidable. More precisely, we construct Lagrangians with arbitrarily small Lagrangian angle and Lagrangians which are Hamiltonian isotopic to a plane that, nevertheless, develop finite time singularities under mean curvature flow. We then prove two theorems regarding the tangent flow at a singularity when the initial condition is a zero-Maslov class Lagrangian. The first one (Theorem A) states that that t…
We prove a Thomas--Yau-type conjecture for monotone Lagrangian tori satisfying a symmetry condition in the complex projective plane $\mathbb{CP}^2$. We show that such tori exist for all time under Lagrangian mean curvature flow with surgery, undergoing at most a finite number of surgeries before flowing to a minimal Clifford torus in infinite time. Furthermore, we show that we can construct a torus with any finite number of surgeries before convergence. Along the way, we prove many interesting subsidiary results and develop methods which should be useful in studying Lagrangian mean curvature f…
In this paper we study the short time existence problem for the (generalized) Lagrangian mean curvature flow in (almost) Calabi--Yau manifolds when the initial Lagrangian submanifold has isolated conical singularities modelled on stable special Lagrangian cones. Given a Lagrangian submanifold $F_0:L\rightarrow M$ in an almost Calabi--Yau manifold $M$ with isolated conical singularities at $x_1,...,x_n\in M$ modelled on stable special Lagrangian cones $C_1,...,C_n$ in $\mathbb{C}^m$, we show that for a short time there exist one-parameter families of points $x_1(t),... x_n(t)\in M$ and a one pa…
We prove longtime existence and estimates for solutions to a fully nonlinear Lagrangian parabolic equation with locally $C^{1,1}$ initial data $u_0$ satisfying either (1) $-(1+η) I_n\leq D^2u_0 \leq (1+η)I_n$ for some positive dimensional constant $η$, (2) $u_0$ is weakly convex everywhere or (3) $u_0$ satisfies a large supercritical Lagrangian phase condition.
In this paper, we derive a mean curvature estimate for eternal solutions (including translating solutions) of almost-calibrated Lagrangian mean curvature flow in complex Euclidean space. As a consequence, we show a non-existence result for eternal solutions of almost-calibrated Lagrangian mean curvature flow.
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.
In this paper, we discuss the Lagrangian angles of a family of Lagrangian fibrations moved under mean curvature flow. In the case $n=1$, the angle function is shown to satisfy a degenerated partial differential equation. We prove that any smooth solution to the equation also corresponds to smooth foliation of curves under mean curvature flow.
For a sequence of immersed connected closed Hamiltonian stationary Lagrangian submaniolds in $\mathbb{C}^{n}$ with uniform bounds on their volumes and the total extrinsic curvatures, we prove that a subsequence converges either to a point or to a Hamiltonian stationary Lagrangian $n$-varifold locally uniformly in $C^{k}$ for any nonnegative integer $k$ away from a finite set of points, and the limit is Hamiltonian stationary in ${\mathbb{C}}^{n}$. We also obtain a theorem on extending Hamiltonian stationary Lagrangian submanifolds $L$ across a compact set $N$ of Hausdorff codimension at least …
An almost Kähler structure on a symplectic manifold $(N, ω)$ consists of a Riemannian metric $g$ and an almost complex structure $J$ such that the symplectic form $ω$ satisfies $ω(\cdot, \cdot)=g(J(\cdot), \cdot)$. Any symplectic manifold admits an almost Kähler structure and we refer to $(N, ω, g, J)$ as an almost Kähler manifold. In this article, we propose a natural evolution equation to investigate the deformation of Lagrangian submanifolds in almost Kähler manifolds. A metric and complex connection $\hn$ on $TN$ defines a generalized mean curvature vector field along any Lagrangian subman…
Lagrangian submanifolds of a Kaehler manifold are called Hamiltonian-stationary (or $H$-stationary for short) if it is a critical point of the area functional restricted to compactly supported Hamiltonian variations. In [B. Y. Chen, F. Dillen, L. Verstraelen and L. Vrancken, Lagrangian isometric immersions of a real-space-form $M^{n}(c)$ into a complex-space-form $\tilde{M}^{n}(4c)$, Math. Proc. Cambridge Philo. Soc. 124 (1998), 107-125], an effective method to constructing Lagrangian submanifolds of constant curvature $\varepsilon$ in complex space form $M^n(4\varepsilon)$ was introduced. In …
We prove rigidity of any properly immersed noncompact Lagrangian shrinker with single valued Lagrangian angle for Lagrangian mean curvature flows. Our pointwise approach also provides an ele- mentary proof to the known rigidity results for graphical and almost graphical shrinkers of mean curvature flows.
