On Alexandrov's Surfaces with Bounded Integral Curvature
Marc Troyanov
备注：
This article is an updated and translated version of the paper \cite{Troyanov2009}, to be included in the forthcoming book "Reshetnyak's Theory of Subharmonic Metrics", edited by François Fillastre and Dmitriy Slutskiy and to be published by Springer and the Centre de recherches Mathématiques (CRM) in Montréal
During the years 1940-1970, Alexandrov and the "Leningrad School" have investigated the geometry of singular surfaces in depth. The theory developed by this school is about topological surfaces with an intrinsic metric for which we can define a notion of curvature, which is a Radon measure. This class of surfaces has good convergence properties and is remarkably stable with respect to various geometrical constructions (gluing etc.). It includes polyhedral surfaces as well as Riemannian surfaces of class $C^2$, and both of these classes are dense families of Alexandrov's surfaces. Any singular surface that can be reasonably thought of is an Alexandrov surface and a number of geometric properties of smooth surfaces extend and generalize to this class.
The goal of this paper is to give an introduction to Alexandrov's theory, to provide some examples and state some of the fundamental facts of the theory. We discuss the conformal viewpoint introduced by Yuri G. Reshetnyak and explain how it leads to a classification of compact Alexandrov's surfaces.
We demonstrate that the property of being Alexandrov immersed is preserved along mean curvature flow. Furthermore, we demonstrate that mean curvature flow techniques for mean convex embedded flows such as noncollapsing and gradient estimates also hold in this setting. We also indicate the necessary modifications to the work of Brendle--Huisken to allow for mean curvature flow with surgery for the Alexandrov immersed, $2$-dimensional setting.
We prove a uniqueness theorem for immersed spheres of prescribed (non-constant) mean curvature in homogeneous three-manifolds. In particular, this uniqueness theorem proves a conjecture by A.D. Alexandrov about immersed spheres of prescribed Weingarten curvature in R3 for the special but important case of prescribed mean curvature. As a consequence, we extend the classical Hopf uniqueness theorem for constant mean curvature spheres to the case of immersed spheres of prescribed antipodally symmetric mean curvature in R3.
We point out that a 4-dimensional topological manifold with an Alexandrov metric (of curvature bounded below) and with an effective, isometric action of the circle or the 2-torus is locally smooth. This observation implies that the topological and equivariant classifications of compact, simply connected Riemannian 4-manifolds with positive or nonnegative sectional curvature and an effective isometric action of a circle or a 2-torus also hold if we consider Alexandrov manifolds instead of Riemannian manifolds.
Distance functions of metric spaces with lower curvature bound, by definition, enjoy various metric inequalities; triangle comparison, quadruple comparison and the inequality of Lang-Schroeder-Sturm. The purpose of this paper is to study the extremal cases of these inequalities and to prove rigidity results. The spaces which we shall deal with here are Alexandrov spaces which possibly have infinite dimension and are not supposed to be locally compact.
We develop two new tools for use in Alexandrov geometry: a theory of ramified orientable double covers and a particularly useful version of the Slice Theorem for actions of compact Lie groups. These tools are applied to the classification of compact, positively curved Alexandrov spaces with maximal symmetry rank.
We introduce the moduli space of spectral curves of constant mean curvature (\cmc\hspace{-5pt}) cylinders of finite type in the round unit 3-sphere. The subset of spectral curves of mean-convex Alexandrov embedded cylinders is explicitly determined using a combination of integrable systems and geometric analysis techniques. We prove that these cylinders are surfaces of revolution. As a consequence all mean-convex Alexandrov embedded {\sc{cmc}} tori in the 3-sphere are surfaces of revolution.
Let $M$ be an $n$-dimensional Alexandrov space with curvature $\geq 1$, and let $\{q_1,\cdots,q_k\}$ be any $\frac\pi2$-separated subset in $M$ (i.e. the distance $|q_iq_j|\geq\fracπ{2}$ for any $i\neq j$). Under the additional conditions "$|q_iq_j|<π$" and "the diameter $\diam(M)\leq \frac\pi2$", we respectively give the upper bound of $k$ (which depends only on $n$), and we classify the (topological or geometric) structure of $M$ when $k$ attains the upper bound.
This is a continuation of the joint paper with the same title by A.Belenkiy and Yu.Burago. It is proved here that two homeomorphic closed Alexandrov surfaces (of bounded integral curvature) are bi-Lipschitz with a constant depending only on upper bounds of their Euler number, diameters, negative integral curvatures, and two positive numbers e and l such that positive curvature of each embedded disk with perimeter not greater than l is not greater than π-e.
The classical Minkowski formula is extended to spacelike codimension-two submanifolds in spacetimes which admit "hidden symmetry" from conformal Killing-Yano two-forms. As an application, we obtain an Alexandrov type theorem for spacelike codimension-two submanifolds in a static spherically symmetric spacetime: a codimension-two submanifold with constant normalized null expansion (null mean curvature) must lie in a shear-free (umbilical) null hypersurface. These results are generalized for higher order curvature invariants. In particular, the notion of mixed higher order mean curvature is intr…
In this paper, we introduce a new notion for lower bounds of Ricci curvature on Alexandrov spaces, and extend Cheeger-Gromoll splitting theorem and Cheng's maximal diameter theorem to Alexandrov spaces under this Ricci curvature condition.
In the present paper, we determine the topologies of three-dimensional closed Alexandrov spaces which converge to lower dimensional spaces in the Gromov-Hausdorff topology.
We show that on every ${\sf RCD}$ spaces it is possible to introduce, by a distributional-like approach, a Riemann curvature tensor. Since after the works of Petrunin and Zhang-Zhu we know that finite dimensional Alexandrov spaces are ${\sf RCD}$ spaces, our construction applies in particular to the Alexandrov setting. We conjecture that an ${\sf RCD}$ space is Alexandrov if and only if the sectional curvature - defined in terms of such abstract Riemann tensor - is bounded from below.
This is the first paper of two ones. Here we prove that two compact Alexandrov surfaces of bounded integral curvature having no peak points are bi-Lipschitz equivalent if they are homeomorphic one to the other. Also conditions under that two ends having finite integral negative curvature are bi-Lipschitz equivalent are considered. In the second paper it is shown that a bi-Lipschitz constant can be estimated depending on several geometric characteristics.
We show that any minimal torus in $S^3$ which is Alexandrov immersed must be rotationally symmetric. An analogous result holds for surfaces of constant mean curvature.
In this paper we prove that in the class of metric measure spaces with Alexandrov curvature bounded from below the Riemannian curvature-dimension condition $RCD(K,N)$ with $K\in \mathbb{R}$ and $N\in [1,\infty)$ is preserved under doubling and gluing constructions.
We study closed three-dimensional Alexandrov spaces with a lower Ricci curvature bound in the $\mathsf{CD}^*(K,N)$ sense, focusing our attention on those with positive or nonnegative Ricci curvature. First, we show that a closed three-dimensional $\mathsf{CD}^*(2,3)$-Alexandrov space must be homeomorphic to a spherical space form or to the suspension of $\mathbb{R}P^2$. We then classify closed three-dimensional $\mathsf{CD}^*(0,3)$-Alexandrov spaces.
We study the intrinsic geometry of a one-dimensional complex space provided with a Kaehler metric in the sense of Grauert. We show that if K is an upper bound for the Gaussian curvature on the regular locus, then the intrinsic metric has curvature at most K in the sense of Alexandrov.
We first prove a general gluing theorem which creates new nondegenerate constant mean curvature surfaces by attaching half Delaunay surfaces with small necksize to arbitrary points of any nondegenerate CMC surface. The proof uses the method of Cauchy data matching from \cite{MP}, cf. also \cite{MPP}. In the second part of this paper, we develop the consequences of this result and (at least partially) characterize the image of the map which associates to each complete, Alexandrov-embedded CMC surface with finite topology its associated conformal structure, which is a compact Riemann surface wit…
We find a monotone quantity along the inverse mean curvature flow and use it to prove an Alexandrov-Fenchel-type inequality for strictly convex hypersurfaces in the $n$-dimensional sphere, $n \geq 3$.
For any closed smooth Riemannian manifold H. Weyl has defined a sequence of numbers called today intrinsic volumes. They include volume, Euler characteristic, and integral of the scalar curvature. We conjecture that absolute values of all intrinsic volumes are bounded by a constant depending only on the dimension of the manifold, upper bound on its diameter, and lower bound on the sectional curvature. Furthermore we conjecture that intrinsic volumes can be defined for some (so called smoothable) Alexandrov spaces with curvature bounded below and state few of the expected properties of them, pa…
Recently, in [49], a new definition for lower Ricci curvature bounds on Alexandrov spaces was introduced by the authors. In this article, we extend our research to summarize the geometric and analytic results under this Ricci condition. In particular, two new results, the rigidity result of Bishop-Gromov volume comparison and Lipschitz continuity of heat kernel, are obtained.
Under the definition of Ricci curvature bounded below for Alexandrov spaces introduced by Zhang-Zhu, we generalize a result by Colding that an n dimentional manifold with Ricci curvature greater or equal to n minus 1 and volume close to that of the unit n sphere is close (in the Gromov-Hausdorff distance) to the sphere, from the case of Riemannian manifolds to the case of Alexandrov spaces, with an additional assumption, roughly speaking, that the rough volume of the set of short cut points is small, following the basic idea in the Riemannian case with necessary modifications because of the on…
We prove a reverse isoperimetric inequality for domains homeomorphic to a disc with the boundary of curvature bounded below lying in two-dimensional Alexandrov spaces of curvature $\geqslant c$. We also study the equality case.
We show that every finite-dimensional Alexandrov space X with curvature bounded from below embeds canonically into a product of an Alexandrov space with the same curvature bound and a Euclidean space such that each affine function on X comes from an affine function on the Euclidean space.
We prove that compact 3-manifolds $M$ of constant curvature +1 with boundary a minimal surface are locally naturally parametrized by the conformal class of the boundary metric $γ$ in the Teichmuller space of $\partial M$, when $genus(\partial M) \geq 2$. Stronger results are obtained in the case of genus 1 boundary, giving in particular a new proof of Brendle's solution of the Lawson conjecture. The results generalize to constant mean curvature surfaces, and surfaces in flat and hyperbolic 3-manifolds.
In this paper, we introduce quasi-convex subsets in Alxandrov spaces with lower curvature bound, which include not only all closed convex subsets without boundary but also all extremal subsets. Moreover, we explore several essential properties of such kind of subsets including a generalized Liberman theorem. It turns out that the quasi-convex subset is a nice and fundamental concept to illustrate the similarities and differences between Riemannian manifolds and Alxandrov spaces with lower curvature bound.
Here I show compatibility of two definition of generalized curvature bounds --- the lower bound for sectional curvature in the sense of Alexandrov and lower bound for Ricci curvature in the sense of Lott--Villani--Sturm.
In this paper, we show a local energy convexity of $W^{1,2}$ maps into $CAT(K)$ spaces. This energy convexity allows us to extend Colding and Minicozzi's width-sweepout construction to produce closed geodesics in any closed Alexandrov space of curvature bounded from above, which also provides a generalized version of the Birkhoff-Lyusternik theorem on the existence of non-trivial closed geodesics in the Alexandrov setting.
This paper aims to give an elementary proof for Toponogov's theorem in Alexandrov geometry with lower curvature bound. The idea of the proof comes from the fact that, in Riemannian geometry, sectional curvature can be embodied in the second variation formula.
In this paper, we solve various isoperimetric problems for the quermassintegrals and the curvature integrals in the hyperbolic space $\H^n$, by using quermassintegral preserving curvature flows. As a byproduct, we obtain hyperbolic Alexandrov-Fenchel inequalities.
We are concerned with hypersurfaces of $\mathbb{R}^N$ with constant nonlocal (or fractional) mean curvature. This is the equation associated to critical points of the fractional perimeter under a volume constraint. Our results are twofold. First we prove the nonlocal analogue of the Alexandrov result characterizing spheres as the only closed embedded hypersurfaces in $\mathbb{R}^N$ with constant mean curvature. Here we use the moving planes method. Our second result establishes the existence of periodic bands or "cylinders" in $\mathbb{R}^2$ with constant nonlocal mean curvature and bifurcatin…
We prove a rigidity result in the sphere which allows us to generalize a result about smooth convex hypersurfaces in the sphere by Do Carmo-Warner to convex $C^2$-hypersurfaces. We apply these results to prove $C^{1,β}$-convergence of inverse F-curvature flows in the sphere to an equator in \mathbb{S}^{n+1} for embedded, closed, strictly convex initial hypersurfaces. The result holds for large classes of curvature functions including the mean curvature and arbitrary powers of the Gauss curvature. We use this result to prove Alexandrov-Fenchel type inequalities in the sphere.
In this paper, we show existence and uniqueness of Ricci flow whose initial condition is a compact Alexandrov surface with curvature bounded from below. This requires a weakening of the notion of initial condition which is able to deal with a priori non-Riemannian metric spaces. As a by-product, we obtain that the Ricci flow of a surface depends smoothly on Gromov-Hausdorff perturbations of the initial condition.
We endow each closed, orientable Alexandrov space $(X, d)$ with an integral current $T$ of weight equal to 1, $\partial T = 0 and \set(T) = X$, in other words, we prove that $(X, d, T)$ is an integral current space with no boundary. Combining this result with a result of Li and Perales, we show that non-collapsing sequences of these spaces with uniform lower curvature and diameter bounds admit subsequences whose Gromov-Hausdorff and intrinsic flat limits agree.
The Gauss curvature measure of a pointed Euclidean convex body is a measure on the unit sphere which extends the notion of Gauss curvature to non-smooth bodies. Alexandrov's problem consists in finding a convex body with given curvature measure. In Euclidean space, A.D. Alexandrov gave a necessary and sufficient condition on the measure for this problem to have a solution. In this paper, we address Alexandrov's problem for convex bodies in the hyperbolic space H m+1. After defining the Gauss curvature measure of an arbitrary hyperbolic convex body, we completely solve Alexandrov's problem in t…
In this paper, we establish a Bochner type formula on Alexandrov spaces with Ricci curvature bounded below. Yau's gradient estimate for harmonic functions is also obtained on Alexandrov spaces.
We study a class of compact surfaces in $\mathbb R^3$ introduced by Alexandrov and generalized by Nirenberg and prove a compactness result under suitable assumptions on induced metrics and Gauss curvatures.
The purpose of this paper is to show that in a finite dimensional metric space with Alexandrov's curvature bounded below, Monge's transport problem for the quadratic cost admits a unique solution.
We introduce a new geometric invariant called the obtuse constant of spaces with curvature bounded below. We first find relations between this invariant and the normalized volume. We also discuss the case of maximal obtuse constant equal to $π/2$, where we prove some rigidity for spaces. Although we consider Alexandrov spaces with curvature bounded below, the results are new even in the Riemannian case.
