Given a function $f$ on a smooth Riemannian manifold without boundary, we prove that if $p \in M$ is a non-degenerate critical point of $f$, then a neighborhood of $p$ contains a foliation by spheres with mean curvature proportional to $f$. This foliation is essentially unique. The nondegeneracy assumption can be substantially relaxed, at the expense of losing the property that the family of spheres with prescribed mean curvature defines a foliation.
Existence of disks with prescribed mean curvature and contact angle in arbitrary codimension
School of Mathematics and Statistics, Shaanxi Normal University（陕西师范大学数学与统计学院）；School of Mathematical Sciences, Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交通大学数学科学学院）
We prove nonexistence of nonconstant local minimizers for a class of functionals, which typically appears in the scalar two-phase field model, over a smooth N-dimensional Riemannian manifold without boundary with non-negative Ricci curvature. Conversely for a class of surfaces possessing a simple closed geodesic along which the Gauss curvature is negative we prove existence of nonconstant local minimizers for the same class of functionals.
In this article we study a class of prescribed curvature problems on complete noncompact Riemannian manifolds. To be precise, we derive local $C^0$-estimate under an asymptotic condition which is in effect optimal, and prove the existence of complete conformal metrics with prescribed curvature functions. A key ingredient of our strategy is Aviles-McOwen's result or its fully nonlinear version on the existence of complete conformal metrics with prescribed curvature functions on manifolds with boundary.
We prove the existence of metrics with prescribed $Q$-curvature under natural assumptions on the sign of the prescribing function and the background metric. In the dimension four case, we also obtain existence results for curvature forms requiring only restrictions on the Euler characteristic. Moreover, we derive a prescription result for open submanifolds which allow us to conclude that any smooth function on $\mathbb{R}^n$ can be realized as the $Q$-curvature of a Riemannian metric.
In this paper we provide some local and global splitting results on complete Riemannian manifolds with nonnegative Ricci curvature. We achieve the splitting through the analysis of some pointwise inequalities of Modica type which hold true for every bounded solution to a semilinear Poisson equation. More precisely, we prove that the existence of a nonconstant bounded solution $u$ for which one of the previous inequalities becomes an equality at some point leads to the splitting results as well as to a classification of such a solution $u$.
We generalize the maximal diameter sphere theorem due to Toponogov by means of the radial curvature. As a corollary to our main theorem, we prove that for a complete connected Riemannian $n$-manifold $M$ having radial sectional curvature at a point bounded from below by the radial curvature function of an ellipsoid of prolate type, the diameter of $M$ does not exceed the diameter of the ellipsoid, and if the diameter of $M$ equals that of the ellipsoid, then $M$ is isometric to the $n$-dimensional ellipsoid of revolution.
It is proved the existence and uniqueness of graphs with prescribed mean curvature in Riemannian submersions fibered by flow lines of a vertical Killing vector field.
In this article, we first show that for all compact Riemannian manifolds with non-empty smooth boundary and dimension at least 3, there exists a metric, pointwise conformal to the original metric, with constant scalar curvature in the interior, and constant scalar curvature on the boundary by considering the boundary as a manifold of its own with dimension at least 2. We then show a series of prescribed scalar curvature results in the interior and on the boundary, with pointwise conformal deformation. These type of results is both an analogy and an extension of Kazdan and Warner's "Trichotomy …
We show that a wide range of overdetermined boundary problems for semilinear equations with position-dependent nonlinearities admits nontrivial solutions. The result holds true both on the Euclidean space and on compact Riemannian manifolds. As a byproduct of the proofs we also obtain some rigidity, or partial symmetry, results for solutions to overdetermined problems on Riemannian manifolds of nonconstant curvature.
We prove the existence of smooth closed hypersurfaces of prescribed mean curvature homeomorphic to $S^n$ for small $n, n\le6$, provided there are barriers.
In this paper we consider surfaces of class $C^1$ with continuous prescribed mean curvature in a three-dimensional contact sub-Riemannian manifold and prove that their characteristic curves are of class $C^2$. This regularity result also holds for critical points of the sub-Riemannian perimeter under a volume constraint. All results are valid in the first Heisenberg group $\mathbb{H}^1$.
Let M be a compact Riemannian manifold and E a Riemannian vector bundle on M. We look for hypersurfaces of E with a prescribed vertical Gaussian curvature. In trying to solve this problem fibre-wise, we loose the regularity of the resulting solution. To unsure the smoothness of the solution, we construct it as a radial graph over the unit sphere subbundle of E and prove its existence by solving in this one a nonlinear partial differential equation of Monge-Ampère type.
In this paper we consider a set $E\subsetΩ$ with prescribed mean curvature $f\in C(Ω)$ and Euclidean Lipschitz boundary $\partial E=Σ$ inside a three-dimensional contact sub-Riemannian manifold $M$. We prove that if $Σ$ is locally a regular intrinsic graph, the characteristic curves are of class $C^2$. The result is shape and improves the ones contained in \cite{MR2583494} and \cite{GalRit15}.
We consider the following generalisation of a well-known problem in Riemannian geometry: When is a smooth real-valued function s on a given compact n-dimensional manifold M (with or without boundary) the scalar curvature of some smooth pseudo-Riemannian metric of index q on M? We prove that this is the case for every s if 2<q<n-2, provided M admits a metric of index q at all. In fact, if 2<q<n-2, then each connected component of the space of pseudo-Riemannian metrics of index q on M contains a metric with scalar curvature s. We prove several theorems for pseudo-Riemannian metrics of index 1 or…
Assuming that there exists a translating soliton $u_\infty$ with speed $C$ in a domain $Ω$ and with prescribed contact angle on $\partialΩ$, we prove that a graphical solution to the mean curvature flow with the same prescribed contact angle converges to $u_\infty +Ct$ as $t\to\infty$. We also generalize the recent existence result of Gao, Ma, Wang and Weng to non-Euclidean settings under suitable bounds on convexity of $Ω$ and Ricci curvature in $Ω$.
We consider the problem of conformally deforming a metric to one with a prescribed symmetric function of the eigenvalues of the Ricci tensor, in the case of negative curvature.
We construct the first examples of continuous families of isospectral Riemannian metrics that are not locally isometric on closed manifolds, more precisely, on $S^n\times T^m$, where $T^m$ is a torus of dimension $m\ge 2$ and $S^n$ is a sphere of dimension $n\ge 4$. These metrics are not locally homogeneous; in particular, the scalar curvature of each metric is nonconstant. For some of the deformations, the maximum scalar curvature changes during the deformation.
We study the prescribed mean curvature equation with a prescribed boundary contact angle condition in $M\times\R$ where $M^n$ is a Riemannian submanifold in $\R^{n+1}$. The main purpose is to establish a priori gradient estimates for solutions, from which the long time existence of the solution are derived.
We prove the existence of branched immersed constant mean curvature 2-spheres in an arbitrary Riemannian 3-sphere for almost every prescribed mean curvature, and moreover for all prescribed mean curvatures when the 3-sphere is positively curved. To achieve this, we develop a min-max scheme for a weighted Dirichlet energy functional. There are three main ingredients in our approach: a bi-harmonic approximation procedure to obtain compactness of the new functional, a derivative estimate of the min-max values to gain energy upper bounds for min-max sequences for almost every choice of mean curvat…
Given a smooth free action of a compact connected Lie group $G$ on a smooth compact manifold $M$, we show that the space of $G$-invariant Riemannian metrics on $M$ whose automorphism group is precisely $G$ is open dense in the space of all $G$-invariant metrics, provided the dimension of $M$ is "sufficiently large" compared to that of $G$. As a consequence, it follows that every compact connected Lie group can be realized as the automorphism group of some compact connected Riemannian manifold; this recovers prior work by Bedford-Dadok and Saerens-Zame under less stringent dimension conditions.…
We investigate existence and uniqueness of bounded solutions of parabolic equations with unbounded coefficients in $M\times \mathbb R_+$, where $M$ is a complete noncompact Riemannian manifold. Under specific assumptions, we establish existence of solutions satisfying prescribed conditions at infinity, depending on the direction along which infinity is approached. Moreover, the large-time behavior of such solutions is studied. We consider also elliptic equations on $M$ with similar conditions at infinity.
We build new examples of extremal domains with small prescribed volume for the first eigenvalue of the Laplace-Beltrami operator in some Riemannian manifold with boundary. These domains are close to half balls of small radius centered at a nondegenerate critical point of the mean curvature function of the boundary of the manifold, and their boundary intersects the boundary of the manifold orthogonally.
We consider maps into Riemannian manifolds of non-positive curvature and start developing a systematic PDE theory. We control the Sobolev $H^{2,2}$-norm of such a map in terms of its energy, the $L^2$-norm of its tension field and a topological term depending on the homotopy class. We also solve a Dirchlet problem without an underlying variational structure, as an extension of the topic of harmonic maps with potentials.
On Riemannian manifolds of dimension 4, for prescribed scalar curvature equation, under lipschitzian condition on the prescribed curvature, we have an uniform estimate for the solutions of the equation if we control their minimas.
We give some a priori estimates of type sup*inf for Yamabe and prescribed scalar curvature type equations on Riemannian manifolds of dimension >2. The product sup*inf is caracteristic of those equations, like the usual Harnack inequalities for non negative harmonic functions. First, we have a lower bound for sup*inf for some classes of PDE on compact manifolds (like prescribed scalar cuvature). We also have an upper bound for the same product but on any Riemannian manifold not necessarily compact. An application of those result is an uniqueness solution for some PDE.
We first prove that, unlike the biharmonic case, there exist triharmonic curves with nonconstant curvature in a suitable Riemannian manifold of arbitrary dimension. We then give the complete classification of triharmonic curves in surfaces with constant Gaussian curvature. Next, restricting to curves in a 3-dimensional Riemannian manifold, we study the family of triharmonic curves with constant curvature, showing that they are Frenet helices. In the last part, we give the full classification of triharmonic Frenet helices in space forms and in Bianchi-Cartan-Vranceanu spaces.
We prove the existence and uniqueness of graphs with prescribed mean curvature function in a large class of Riemannian manifolds which comprises spaces endowed with a conformal Killing vector field.
Given a complete $n$-dimensional Riemannian manifold $M$, we study the existence of vertical graphs in $M\times\mathbb{R}$ with prescribed mean curvature $H=H(x,z)$. Precisely, we prove that the Dirichlet problem for the vertical mean curvature equation in a smooth bounded domain $Ω\subset M$ has solution for arbitrary smooth boundary data if $(n-1)\mathcal{H}_{\partialΩ}(y)\geq n\sup\limits_{z\in\mathbb{R}}\left|{H(y,z)}\right|$ for each $y\in\partialΩ$ provided the function $H$ also satisfies $\mathrm{Ricc}_x\geq n\sup\limits_{z\in\mathbb{R}}\left\|\nabla_x H(x,z)\right\|-\dfrac{n^2}{n-1}\in…
We show that the evolution of isoparametric hypersurfaces of Riemannian manifolds by the mean curvature flow is given by a reparametrization of the parallel family in short time, as long as the uniqueness of the mean curvature flow holds for the initial data and the corresponding ambient space. As an application, we provide a class of Riemannian manifolds that admit hypersurfaces with constant principal curvatures, which are not isoparametric hypersurfaces. Furthermore, for a class of ambient spaces, we show that the singularities developed by the mean curvature flow with isoparametric hypersu…
Let $(M, g)$ be a compact Riemannian manifold of dimension $N \geq 5$ and $Q_g$ be its $Q$ curvature. The prescribed $Q$ curvature problem is concerned with finding metric of constant $Q$ curvature in the conformal class of $g$. This amounts to finding a positive solution to \[ P_g (u)= c u^{\frac{N+4}{N-4}}, u>0 {on} M\] where $P_g$ is the Paneitz operator. We show that for dimensions $N \geq 25$, the set of all positive solutions to the prescribed $Q$ curvature problem is {\em non-compact}.
A general theory of partial balayage on Riemannian manifolds is developed, with emphasis on compact manifolds. Partial balayage is an operation of sweeping measures, or charge distributions, to a prescribed density, and it is closely related to (construction of) quadrature domains for subharmonic functions, growth processes such as Laplacian growth and to weighted equilibrium distributions. Several examples are given in the paper, as well as some specific results. For instance, it is proved that, in two dimensions, harmonic and geodesic balls are the same if and only if the Gaussian curvature …
In this work, we study the Yamabe flow corresponding to the prescribed scalar curvature problem on compact Riemannian manifolds with negative scalar curvature. The long time existence and convergence of the flow are proved under appropriate conditions on the prescribed scalar curvature function.
We present a general existence proof for a wide class of non-linear elliptic equations which can be applied to problems with barrier conditions without specifying any assumptions guaranteeing the uniqueness or local uniqueness of particular solutions. As an application we prove the existence of closed hypersurfaces with curvature prescribed in the tangent bundle of an ambient Riemannian manifold $N$ without supposing any sign condition on the sectional curvatures $K_N$. A curvature flow wouldn't work in this situation, neither the method of successive approximation.
Let $M$ be a domain enclosed between two principal orbits on a cohomogeneity one manifold $M_1$. Suppose $T$ and $R$ are symmetric invariant (0,2)-tensor fields on $M$ and $\partial M$, respectively. The paper studies the prescribed Ricci curvature equation $\mathrm{Ric}(G)=T$ for a Riemannian metric $G$ on $M$ subject to the boundary condition $G_{\partial M}=R$ (the notation $G_{\partial M}$ here stands for the metric induced by $G$ on $\partial M$). Imposing a standard assumption on $M_1$, we describe a set of requirements on $T$ and $R$ that guarantee global and local solvability.
Suppose $M$ is a manifold with boundary. Choose a point $o\in\partial M$. We investigate the prescribed Ricci curvature equation $\Ric(G)=T$ in a neighborhood of $o$ under natural boundary conditions. The unknown $G$ here is a Riemannian metric. The letter $T$ in the right-hand side denotes a (0,2)-tensor. Our main theorems address the questions of the existence and the uniqueness of solutions. We explain, among other things, how these theorems may be used to study rotationally symmetric metrics near the boundary of a solid torus $\mathcal T$. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the…
We study the spectrum of phase transitions with prescribed mean curvature in Riemannian manifolds. These phase transitions are solutions to an inhomogeneous semilinear elliptic PDE that give rise to diffuse objects (varifolds) that limit to hypersurfaces, possibly with singularities, whose mean curvature is determined by the "prescribed mean curvature" function and the limiting multiplicity. We establish upper bounds for the eigenvalues of the diffuse problem, as well as the more subtle lower bounds when the diffuse problem converges with multiplicity one. For the latter, we also establish asy…
Let G be a three-dimensional unimodular Lie group, and let T be a left-invariant symmetric (0, 2)-tensor field on G. We provide the necessary and sufficient conditions on T for the existence of a pair (g, c) consisting of a left-invariant Riemannian metric g and a positive constant c such that Ric(g) = cT, where Ric(g) is the Ricci curvature of g. We also discuss the uniqueness of such pairs and show that, in almost all cases, there exists at most one positive constant c such that Ric(g) = cT is solvable for some left-invariant Riemannian metric g.
For compact Riemannian manifolds with convex boundary, B.White proved the following alternative: Either there is an isoperimetric inequality for minimal hypersurfaces or there exists a closed minimal hypersurface, possibly with a small singular set. There is the natural question if a similar result is true for submanifolds of higher codimension. Specifically, B.White asked if the non-existence of an isoperimetric inequality for k-varifolds implies the existence of a nonzero, stationary, integral k-varifold. We present examples showing that this is not true in codimension greater than two. The …
The paper is devoted to the variational analysis of the Willmore, and other L^2 curvature functionals, among immersions of 2-dimensional surfaces into a compact riemannian m-manifold (M^m,h) with m>2. The goal of the paper is twofold, on one hand, we give the right setting for doing the calculus of variations (including min max methods) of such functionals for immersions into manifolds and, on the other hand, we prove existence results for possibly branched Willmore spheres under various constraints (prescribed homotopy class, prescribed area) or under curvature assumptions for M^m. To this ai…
In 2015, Mantoulidis and Schoen constructed $3$-dimensional asymptotically Euclidean manifolds with non-negative scalar curvature whose ADM mass can be made arbitrarily close to the optimal value of the Riemannian Penrose Inequality, while the intrinsic geometry of the outermost minimal surface can be ``far away'' from being round. The resulting manifolds, called extensions, are geometrically not ``close'' to a spatial Schwarzschild manifold. This suggests instability of the Riemannian Penrose Inequality. Their construction was later adapted to $n+1$ dimensions by Cabrera Pacheco and Miao. In …
Let $G$ be a compact connected Lie group and $H$ a closed subgroup of $G$. Suppose the homogeneous space $G/H$ is effective and has dimension 3 or higher. Consider a $G$-invariant, symmetric, positive-semidefinite, nonzero (0,2)-tensor field $T$ on $G/H$. Assume that $H$ is a maximal connected Lie subgroup of $G$. We prove the existence of a $G$-invariant Riemannian metric $g$ and a positive number $c$ such that the Ricci curvature of $g$ coincides with $cT$ on $G/H$. Afterwards, we examine what happens when the maximality hypothesis fails to hold.
We consider two natural problems arising in geometry which are equivalent to the local solvability of specific equations of Monge-Ampere type. These two problems are: the local isometric embedding problem for two-dimensional Riemannian manifolds, and the problem of locally prescribed Gaussian curvature for surfaces in R^3. We prove a general local existence result for a large class of Monge-Ampere equations in the plane, and obtain as corollaries the existence of regular solutions to both problems, in the case that the Gaussian curvature vanishes to arbitrary finite order on a single smooth cu…
Lower bounds on Ricci curvature limit the volumes of sets and the existence of harmonic functions on Riemannian manifolds. In 1975, Shing Tung Yau proved that a complete noncompact manifold with nonnegative Ricci curvature has no nonconstant harmonic functions of sublinear growth. In the same paper, Yau used this result to prove that a complete noncompact manifold with nonnegative Ricci curvature has at least linear volume growth. In this paper, we prove the following theorem concerning harmonic functions on these manifolds. Theorem: Let M be a complete noncompact manifold with nonnegative Ric…
We prove the existence of immersed closed curves of constant geodesic curvature in an arbitrary Riemannian 2-sphere for almost every prescribed curvature. To achieve this, we develop a min-max scheme for a weighted length functional.
We prove the existence of extremal domains with small prescribed volume for the first eigenvalue of the Laplace-Beltrami operator in any compact Riemannian manifold. This result generalizes a results of F. Pacard and the second author where the existence of a nondegenerate critical point of the scalar curvature of the Riemannian manifold was required.
