We show that the volume of any Riemannian metric on a three sphere is bounded below by the length of the shortest closed curve that links its antipodal image. In particular, the volume is bounded below by the minimum of the length of the shortest closed geodesic and the minimal distance between antipodal points.
We obtain sharp volume bound for a conic 2-sphere in terms of its Gaussian curvature bound. We also give the geometric models realizing the extremal volume. In particular, when the curvature is bounded in absolute value by $1$, we compute the minimal volume of a conic sphere in the sense of Gromov. In order to apply the level set analysis and iso-perimetric inequality as in our previous works, we develop some new analytical tools to treat regions with vanishing curvature.
The volume of a k-dimensional foliation $\mathcal{F}$ in a Riemannian manifold $M^{n}$ is defined as the mass of image of the Gauss map, which is a map from M to the Grassmann bundle of k-planes in the tangent bundle. Generalizing a construction by Gluck and Ziller, "singular" foliations by 3-spheres are constructed on round spheres $S^{4n+3}$, as well as a singular foliation by 7-spheres on $S^{15}$, which minimize volume within their respective relative homology classes. These singular examples provide lower bounds for volumes of regular 3-dimensional foliations of $S^{4n+3}$ and regular 7-d…
Let $M$ be a smooth, connected, compact submanifold of $\mathbb{R}^n$ without boundary and of dimension $k\geq 2$. Let $\mathbb{S}^k \subset \mathbb{R}^{k+1}\subset \mathbb{R}^n$ denote the $k$-dimesnional unit sphere. We show if $M$ has reach equal to one, then its volume satisfies $\text{vol}(M)\geq \text{vol}(\mathbb{S}^k)$ with equality holding only if $M$ is congruent to $\mathbb{S}^k$.
How large can be the width of Riemannian three-spheres of the same volume in the same conformal class? If a maximum value is attained, how does a maximising metric look like? What happens as the conformal class changes? In this paper, we investigate these and other related questions, focusing on the context of Simon-Smith min-max theory.
For $n\geq 1$, we exhibit a lower bound for the volume of a unit vector field on $\mathbb{S}^{2n+1}\backslash\{\pm p\}$ depending on the absolute values of its Poincaré indices around $\pm p$. We determine which vector fields achieve this volume, and discuss the idea of having multiple isolated singularities of arbitrary configurations.
Bray's football theorem (\cite{bray2009penrose}) is a weakening of Bishop theorem in dimension 3. It gives a sharp volume upper bound for a three dimensional manifold with scalar curvature larger than $n(n-1)$ and Ricci curvature larger than $\varepsilon$. This paper extends Bray's football theorem in high dimensions, assuming the manifold is axis symmetric or the Ricci curvature has an upper bound.
We determine the lengths of all closed sub-Riemannian geodesics on the three-sphere. Our methods are elementary and allow us to avoid using explicit formulas for the sub-Riemannian geodesics.
We show that the shortest closed geodesic on a 2-sphere with non-negative curvature has length bounded above by three times the diameter. We prove a new isoperimetric inequality for 2-spheres with pinched curvature; this allows us to improve our bound on the length of the shortest closed geodesic in the pinched curvature setting.
We study the negative gradient flow of the spinorial energy functional (introduced by Ammann, Weiß, and Witt) on 3-dimensional Berger spheres. For a certain class of spinors we show that the Berger spheres collapse to a 2-dimensional sphere. Moreover, for special cases, we prove that the volume-normalized standard 3-sphere together with a Killing spinor is a stable critical point of the volume-normalized version of the flow. Our results also include an example of a critical point of the volume-normalized flow on the 3-sphere, which is not a Killing spinor.
Recently, F. Balacheff proved that the Calabi-Croke sphere made of two flat 1-unit-side equilateral triangles glued along their boundaries is a local extremum for the length of the shortest closed geodesic among the Riemannian spheres with conical singularities of fixed area. We give an alternative proof of this theorem, which does not make use of the uniformization theorem, and extend the result to Finsler metrics.
We establish sharp universal upper bounds on the length of the shortest closed geodesic on a punctured sphere with three or four ends endowed with a complete Riemannian metric of finite area. These sharp curvature-free upper bounds are expressed in terms of the area of the punctured sphere. In both cases, we describe the extremal metrics, which are modeled on the Calabi-Croke sphere or the tetrahedral sphere. We also extend these optimal inequalities for reversible and non-necessarily reversible Finsler metrics. In this setting, we obtain optimal bounds for spheres with a larger number of punc…
The goal of this article is to establish estimates involving the Yamabe minimal volume, mixed minimal volume and some topological invariants on compact 4-manifolds. In addition, we provide topological sphere theorems for compact submanifolds of spheres and Euclidean spaces, provided that the full norm of the second fundamental form is suitably bounded.
Let $M$ be a Riemannian $2$-sphere. A classical theorem of Lyusternik and Shnirelman asserts the existence of three distinct simple non-trivial periodic geodesics on $M$. In this paper we prove that there exist three simple periodic geodesics with lengths that do not exceed $20d$, where $d$ is the diameter of $M$. We also present an upper bound that depends only on the area and diameter for the lengths of the three simple periodic geodesics with positive indices that appear as minimax critical values in the classical proofs of the Lyusternik-Shnirelman theorem. Finally, we present better bound…
This paper applies the authors' forthcoming work, "Affine deformations of a three-holed sphere" in Lorentzian geometry to prove a result in hyperbolic geometry. Namely, an infinitesimal deformation of a hyperbolic structure of a three-holed sphere which infinitesimally lengthens the three boundary components infinitesimally lengthens every closed geodesic. The proof interprets the derivative of the geodesic length function as the Margulis invariant (signed marked Lorentzian length spectrum) of the corresponding affine deformation. The aforementioned results imply that the affine deformation is…
We show that for every complete Riemannian surface $M$ diffeomorphic to a sphere with $k \geq 0$ holes there exists a Morse function $f:M \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$, which is constant on each connected component of the boundary of $M$ and has fibers of length no more than $52 \sqrt{Area(M)}+length(\partial M)$. We also show that on every 2-sphere there exists a simple closed curve of length $\leq 26 \sqrt{Area(S^2)}$ subdividing the sphere into two discs of area $\geq \frac{1}{3}Area(S^2)$
In this paper we investigate the flow of surfaces by a class of symmetric functions of the principal curvatures with a mixed volume constraint. We consider compact surfaces without boundary that can be written as a graph over a sphere. The linearisation of the resulting fully nonlinear PDE is used to prove a short time existence theorem for a large class of surfaces that are sufficiently close to a sphere and, using center manifold analysis, the stability of the sphere as a stationary solution to the flow is determined. We will find that for initial surfaces sufficiently close to a sphere, the…
We prove: "If $M$ is a compact hypersurface of the hyperbolic space, convex by horospheres and evolving by the volume preserving mean curvature flow, then it flows for all time, convexity by horospheres is preserved and the flow converges, exponentially, to a geodesic sphere". In addition, we show that the same conclusions about long time existence and convergence hold if $M$ is not convex by horospheres but it is close enough to a geodesic sphere.
We study stable surfaces, i.e., second order minima of the area for variations of fixed volume, in sub-Riemannian space forms of dimension $3$. We prove a stability inequality and provide sufficient conditions ensuring instability of volume-preserving area-stationary $C^2$ surfaces with a non-empty singular set of curves. Combined with previous results, this allows to describe any complete, orientable, embedded and stable $C^2$ surface $Σ$ in the Heisenberg group $\mathbb{H}^1$ and the sub-Riemannian sphere $\mathbb{S}^3$ of constant curvature $1$. In $\mathbb{H}^1$ we conclude that $Σ$ is a E…
We study the question when a manifold that fibers over a sphere can be rationally essential, or even have positive simplicial volume. More concretely, we show that mapping tori of manifolds (whose fundamental groups can be quite arbitrary) of odd dimension at least 7 with non-zero simplicial volume are very common. This contrasts the case of fiber bundles over a sphere of dimension d > 1: we prove that their total spaces are rationally inessential if d is at least 3, and always have simplicial volume 0. Using a result by Dranishnikov, we also deduce a surprising property of macroscopic dimensi…
We show that, the solutions of the isoperimetric problem for small volumes are $C^{2,α}$-close to small spheres. On the way, we define a class of submanifolds called pseudo balls, defined by an equation weaker than constancy of mean curvature. We show that in a neighborhood of each point of a compact riemannian manifold, there is a unique family concentric pseudo balls which contains all the pseudo balls $C^{2,α}$-close to small spheres. This allows us to reduce the isoperimetric problem for small volumes to a variational problem in finite dimension.
We study critical trajectories in the sphere for the $1/2$-Bernoulli's bending functional with length constraint. For every Lagrange multiplier encoding the conservation of the length during the variation, we show the existence of infinitely many closed trajectories which depend on a pair of relatively prime natural numbers. A geometric description of these numbers and the relation with the shape of the corresponding critical trajectories is also given.
We prove that the first positive eigenvalue, normalized by the volume, of the sub-Laplacian associated with a strictly pseudoconvex pseudo-Hermitian structure $\θ$ on the CR sphere S 2n+1 $\subset$ C n+1 , achieves its maximum when $\θ$ is the standard contact form.
We consider the dynamic property of the volume preserving mean curvature flow. This flow was introduced by Huisken who also proved it converges to a round sphere of the same enclosed volume if the initial hypersurface is strictly convex in Euclidean space. We study the stability of this flow in hyperbolic space. In particular, we prove that if the initial hypersurface is hyperbolically mean convex and close to an umbilical sphere in the $L^2$-sense, then the flow exists for all time and converges exponentially to an umbilical sphere.
Let $M^n$ be a closed Riemannian manifold of dimension $n\geq 2$, with Ricci curvature $Ric \geq n-1$. We will show that any sphere of dimension $m$ in the space of closed loops on $M^n$ is homotopic to the sphere in the space of closed loops of length at most $8 πm$. It follows that the length of a shortest periodic geodesic on $M^n$ is bounded from above by $8 π(n-1)$.
We address two fundamental and well-known problems of Gromov and Lyndon: \demo{Problem A} (Gromov, see [5]). Consider a category $M_n$ of closed manifolds of dimension $n$ with nonzero-degree ways as morphisms. Study a partial order $M \ge N \Leftrightarrow Mor (M, N) \neq ϕ$. For which $N$ the degrees of maps $f: M \to N$ are bounded for all $M$? \demo{Problem B} (Lyndon, [12], problem 13). Extend and relate the theories of deficiency, the rate of growth and the Euler-Poincaré characteristic. In particular, what influence does the deficiency have on the structure of an infinite group?
We study a volume/area preserving curvature flow of hypersurfaces that are convex by horospheres in the hyperbolic space, with velocity given by a generic positive, increasing function of the mean curvature, not necessarly homogeneous. For this class of speeds we prove the exponential convergence to a geodesic sphere. The proof is ispired by [10] and is based on the preserving of the convexity by horospheres that allows to bound the inner and outer radii and to give uniform bounds on the curvature by maximum principle arguments. In order to deduce the exponential trend, we study the behaviour …
We prove the absence of a universal diameter bound on lengths of curves in a sweep-out of a Riemannian 2-sphere. If such bound existed it would yield a simple proof of existence of short geodesic segments and closed geodesics on a sphere of small diameter.
We present a construction of a canonical G_2 structure on the unit sphere tangent bundle S_M of any given orientable Riemannian 4-manifold M. Such structure is never geometric or 1-flat, but seems full of other possibilities. We start by the study of the most basic properties of our construction. The structure is co-calibrated if, and only if, M is an Einstein manifold. The fibres are always associative. In fact, the associated 3-form results from a linear combination of three other volume 3-forms, one of which is the volume of the fibres. We also give new examples of co-calibrated structures …
We present a systematic calculation of the volumes of compact manifolds which appear in physics: spheres, projective spaces, group manifolds and generalized flag manifolds. In each case we state what we believe is the most natural scale or normalization of the manifold, that is, the generalization of the unit radius condition for spheres. For this aim we first describe the manifold with some parameters, set up a metric, which induces a volume element, and perform the integration for the adequate range of the parameters; in most cases our manifolds will be either spheres or (twisted) products o…
The simple length spectrum of a Riemannian manifold is the set of lengths of its simple closed geodesics. We prove a theorem claimed by Lusternik: in any Riemannian 2-sphere whose simple length spectrum consists of only one element L, any geodesic is simple closed with length L.
We show that in Euclidean 3-space any closed curve which lies outside the unit sphere and contains the sphere within its convex hull has length at least $4π$. Equality holds only when the curve is composed of $4$ semicircles of length $π$, arranged in the shape of a baseball seam, as conjectured by V. A. Zalgaller in 1996.
We study the isoperimetric structure of asymptotically flat Riemannian 3-manifolds (M,g) that are C^0-asymptotic to Schwarzschild of mass m>0. Refining an argument due to H. Bray we obtain an effective volume comparison theorem in Schwarzschild. We use it to show that isoperimetric regions exist in (M, g) for all sufficiently large volumes, and that they are close to centered coordinate spheres. This implies that the volume-preserving stable constant mean curvature spheres constructed by G. Huisken and S.-T. Yau as well as R. Ye as perturbations of large centered coordinate spheres minimize ar…
We prove a new inequality relating volume to length of closed geodesics on area minimizers for generic metrics on the complex projective plane. We exploit recent regularity results for area minimizers by Moore and White, and the Kronheimer--Mrowka proof of the Thom conjecture.
Length spectrum rigidity and flexibility of spheres of revolution with one equator
Ruhr Universität Bochum(波鸿鲁尔大学);Sorbonne Université, Université Paris Cité, CNRS, IMJ-PRG(索邦大学、巴黎西岱大学、法国国家科学研究中心、IMJ-PRG);Institute for Advanced Study, School of Mathematics(高等研究院数学学院)
Hyperideal tetrahedra are the fundamental building blocks of hyperbolic 3-manifolds with geodesic boundary. The study of their geometric properties (in particular, of their volume) has applications also in other areas of low-dimensional topology, like the computation of quantum invariants of 3-manifolds and the use of variational methods in the study of circle packings on surfaces. The Schläfli formula neatly describes the behaviour of the volume of hyperideal tetrahedra with respect to dihedral angles, while the dependence of volume on edge lengths is worse understood. In this paper we prove …
The present paper considers volume formulae, as well as trigonometric identities, that hold for a tetrahedron in 3-dimensional spherical space of constant sectional curvature +1. The tetrahedron possesses a certain symmetry: namely rotation through angle $π$ in the middle points of a certain pair of its skew edges.