Pairs (Hamiltonian system, Lagrangian distribution), called dynamical Lagrangian distributions, appear naturally in Differential Geometry, Calculus of Variations and Rational Mechanics. The basic differential invariants of a dynamical Lagrangian distribution w.r.t. the action of the group of symplectomorphisms of the ambient symplectic manifold are the curvature operator and the curvature form. These invariants can be seen as generalizations of the classical curvature tensor in Riemannian Geometry. In particular, in terms of these invariants one can localize the focal points along extremals of the corresponding variational problems. In the present paper we study the behavior of the curvature operator, the curvature form and the focal points of a dynamical Lagrangian distribution after its reduction by arbitrary first integrals in involution. The interesting phenomenon is that the curvature form of so-called monotone increasing Lagrangian dynamical distributions, which appear naturally in mechanical systems, does not decrease after reduction. It also turns out that the set of focal points to the given point w.r.t. the monotone increasing dynamical Lagrangian distribution and the corresponding set of focal points w.r.t. its reduction by one integral are alternating sets on the corresponding integral curve of the Hamiltonian system of the considered dynamical distributions. Moreover, the first focal point corresponding to the reduced Lagrangian distribution comes before any focal point related to the original dynamical distribution. We illustrate our results on the classical $N$-body problem.
We study focal surfaces of (wave) fronts associated to unbounded principal curvatures near non-degenerate singular points of initial fronts. We give characterizations of singularities of those focal surfaces in terms of types of singularities and geometrical properties of initial fronts. Moreover, we investigate behavior of the Gaussian curvature of the focal surface.
The {\em focal curve} of an immersed smooth curve $γ:s\mapsto γ(s)$, in Euclidean space $\R^{m+1}$, consists of the centres of its osculating hyperspheres. The focal curve may be parametrised in terms of the Frenet frame of $γ$ (${\bf t},{\bf n}_1, ...,{\bf n}_m$), as $C_γ(s)=(γ+c_1{\bf n}_1+c_2{\bf n}_2+...+c_m{\bf n}_m)(s)$, where the coefficients $c_1,...,c_{m-1}$ are smooth functions that we call the {\em focal curvatures} of $γ$. We discovered a remarkable formula relating the Euclidean curvatures $κ_i$, $i=1,...,m$, of $γ$ with its focal curvatures. We show that the focal curvatures sati…
We prove an estimate on the difference of Maslov indices relative to the choice of two distinct reference Lagrangians of a continuous path in the Lagrangian Grassmannian of a symplectic space. We discuss some applications to the study of conjugate and focal points along a geodesic in a semi-Riemannian manifold.
An isoparametric hypersurface in unit spheres has two focal submanifolds. Condition A plays a crucial role in the classification theory of isoparametric hypersurfaces in [CCJ07], [Chi16] and [Miy13]. This paper determines $C_A$, the set of points with Condition A in focal submanifolds. It turns out that the points in $C_A$ reach an upper bound of the normal scalar curvature $ρ^{\bot}$ (sharper than that in DDVV inequality [GT08], [Lu11]). We also determine the sets $C_P$ (points with parallel second fundamental form) and $C_E$ (points with Einstein condition), which achieve two lower bounds of…
We show that the focal radius of any submanifold $N$ of positive dimension in a manifold $M$ with sectional curvature greater than or equal to $1$ does not exceed $\frac{π}{2}.$ In the case of equality, we show that $N$ is totally geodesic in $M$ and the universal cover of $M$ is isometric to a sphere or a projective space with their standard metrics, provided $N$ is closed. Our results also hold for $k^{th}$--intermediate Ricci curvature, provided the submanifold has dimension $\geq k.$ Thus in a manifold with Ricci curvature $\geq n-1,$ all hypersurfaces have focal radius $\leq \frac{π}{2},$…
We give an optimal estimate for the norm of any submanifold's second fundamental form in terms of its focal radius and the lower sectional curvature bound of the ambient manifold. This is a special case of a similar theorem for intermediate Ricci curvature, and leads to a $C^{1,α}$ compactness result for submanifolds, as well as a "soul-type" structure theorem for manifolds with nonnegative $k^{th}$--intermediate Ricci curvature that have a closed submanifold with dimension $\geq k$ and infinite focal radius. To prove these results, we use the comparison lemma for Jacobi fields from arXiv:1603…
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, 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.
In this article, we study the ergodicity of the geodesic flows on surfaces with no focal points. Let $M$ be a smooth connected and closed surface equipped with a $C^\infty$ Riemannian metric $g$, whose genus $\mathfrak{g} \geq 2$. Suppose that $(M,g)$ has no focal points. We prove that the geodesic flow on the unit tangent bundle of $M$ is ergodic with respect to the Liouville measure, under the assumption that the set of points on $M$ with negative curvature has at most finitely many connected components.
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 …
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 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…
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 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 consider on a complete Riemannian manifold $M$ an immersed totally geodesic hypersurface $\Si$ existing together with an immersed submanifold $N$ without focal points. No curvature condition is needed. We obtained several connectedness results relating the topologies of $M$ and $\Si$ which depend on the codimension of $N$.
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.
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…
In this paper we generalize examples of Hamiltonian stationary Lagrangian submanifolds constructed by Lee and Wang in $\mathbb{C}^m$ to toric almost Calabi-Yau manifolds. We construct examples of weighted Hamiltonian stationary Lagrangian submanifolds in toric almost Calabi-Yau manifolds and solutions of generalized Lagrangian mean curvature flows starting from these examples. We allow these flows to have some singularities and topological changes.
A Lagrangian submanifold in an almost Calabi-Yau manifold is called positive if the real part of the holomorphic volume form restricted to it is positive. An exact isotopy class of positive Lagrangian submanifolds admits a natural Riemannian metric. We compute the Riemann curvature of this metric and show all sectional curvatures are non-positive. The motivation for our calculation comes from mirror symmetry. Roughly speaking, an exact isotopy class of positive Lagrangians corresponds under mirror symmetry to the space of Hermitian metrics on a holomorphic vector bundle. The latter space is an…
By establishing two general quadratic inequalities, we obtain some inequalities related to Ricci curvatures for Lagrangian submanifolds of K$\ddot{\mathrm{a}}$hler QCH-manifolds, which generalize some results for Lagrangian submanifolds of complex space forms.
We make a conjecture about mean curvature flow of Lagrangian submanifolds of Calabi-Yau manifolds, expanding on \cite{Th}. We give new results about the stability condition, and propose a Jordan-Hölder-type decomposition of (special) Lagrangians. The main results are the uniqueness of special Lagrangians in hamiltonian deformation classes of Lagrangians, under mild conditions, and a proof of the conjecture in some cases with symmetry: mean curvature flow converging to Shapere-Vafa's examples of SLags.
We construct Lagrangian translating solitons by desingularizing the intersection points between Lagrangian Grim Reaper cylinders with the same phase using special Lagrangian Lawlor necks. The resulting Lagrangian translating solitons could have arbitrarily many ends and non-contractible loops.
The set of totally geodesic representatives of a homotopy class of maps from a compact Riemannian manifold $M$ with nonnegative Ricci curvature into a complete Riemannian manifold $N$ with no focal points is path-connected and, when nonempty, equal to the set of energy-minimizing maps in that class. When $N$ is compact, each map from a product $W \times M$ into $N$ is homotopic to a map that's totally geodesic on each $M$-fiber. These results may be used to extend to the case of no focal points a number of splitting theorems of Cao-Cheeger-Rong about manifolds with nonpositive sectional curvat…
We prove an optimal control on the time-dependent measure of a measurable set under a reparametrized Lagrangian mean curvature flow of almost calibrated submanifolds in a Calabi-Yau manifold. Moreover we give a classification of those Lagrangian translating solitons in $\mathbb{C}^m$ that evolve by this reparametrized flow
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.
In this paper we study the singularities of the mean curvature flow from a symplectic surface or from a Lagrangian surface in a Kähler-Einstein surface. We prove that the blow-up flow $Σ_s^\infty$ at a singular point $(X_0, T_0)$ of a symplectic mean curvature flow $Σ_t$ or of a Lagrangian mean curvature flow $Σ_t$ is a non trivial minimal surface in ${\bf R}^4$, if $Σ_{-\infty}^\infty$ is connected.
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 prove two main results: (a) Suppose $L$ is a closed, embedded, exact special Lagrangian $m$-fold in ${\mathbb C}^m$ for $m\ge 3$ asymptotic at infinity to the union $Π_1\cupΠ_2$ of two transverse special Lagrangian planes $Π_1,Π_2$ in ${\mathbb C}^m$. Then $L$ is one of the explicit 'Lawlor neck' family of examples found by Lawlor (Invent. math. 95, 1989). (b) Suppose $L$ is a closed, embedded, exact Lagrangian mean curvature flow expander in ${\mathbb C}^m$ for $m\ge 3$ asymptotic at infinity to the union $Π_1\cupΠ_2$ of two transverse Lagrangian planes $Π_1,Π_2$ in ${\mathbb C}^m$. Then $…
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.
We introduce the notion of Kähler manifolds that are almost Einstein and we define a generalized mean curvature vector field along submanifolds in them. We prove that Lagrangian submanifolds remain Lagrangian, when deformed in direction of the generalized mean curvature vector field. For a Kähler manifold that is almost Einstein, and which in addition has a trivial canonical bundle, we show that the generalized mean curvature vector field of a Lagrangian submanifold is the dual vector field associated to the Lagrangian angle.
In this paper we investigate the singularities of Lagrangian mean curvature flows in $\mathbf{C}^m$ by means of smooth singularity models. Type I singularities can only occur at certain times determined by invariants in the cohomology of the initial data. In the type II case, these smooth singularity models are asymptotic to special Lagrangian cones; hence all type II singularities are modeled by unions of special Lagrangian cones.
In this article, we consider the geodesic flow on a compact rank $1$ Riemannian manifold $M$ without focal points, whose universal cover is denoted by $X$. On the ideal boundary $X(\infty)$ of $X$, we show the existence and uniqueness of the Busemann density, which is realized via the Patterson-Sullivan measure. Based on the the Patterson-Sullivan measure, we show that the geodesic flow on $M$ has a unique invariant measure of maximal entropy. We also obtain the asymptotic growth rate of the volume of geodesic spheres in $X$ and the growth rate of the number of closed geodesics on $M$. These r…
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.
We derive formulas for the mean curvature of special Lagrangian 3-folds in the general case where the ambient 6-manifold has intrinsic torsion. Consequently, we are able to characterize those SU(3)-structures for which every special Lagrangian 3-fold is a minimal submanifold. In the process, we obtain an obstruction to the local existence of special Lagrangian 3-folds.
