In this paper we study sets in the $n$-dimensional Heisenberg group $\hhn$ which are critical points, under a volume constraint, of the sub-Riemannian perimeter associated to the distribution of horizontal vector fields in $\hhn$. We define a notion of mean curvature for hypersurfaces and we show that the boundary of a stationary set is a constant mean curvature (CMC) hypersurface. Our definition coincides with previous ones.
Our main result describes which are the CMC hypersurfaces of revolution in $\hhn$. The fact that such a hypersurface is invariant under a compact group of rotations allows us to reduce the CMC partial differential equation to a system of ordinary differential equations. The analysis of the solutions leads us to establish a counterpart in the Heisenberg group of the Delaunay classification of constant mean curvature hypersurfaces of revolution in the Euclidean space. Hence we classify the rotationally invariant isoperimetric sets in $\hhn$.
In this paper, we consider the area-preserving mean curvature flow with free Neumann boundaries. We show that for a rotationally symmetric $n$-dimensional hypersurface in $\R^{n+1}$ between two parallel hyperplanes will converge to a cylinder with the same area under this flow. We use the geometric properties and the maximal principle to obtain gradient and curvature estimates, leading to long-time existence of the flow and convergence to a constant mean curvature surface.
We show that C^1 hypersurfaces in the Heisenberg group are countably N-rectifiable. As a corollary, this shows that all C^1_H graphs over the xy-plane are countable N-rectifiable, showing the equivalence of this notion of rectifiability with that of Franchi, Serra Cassano and Serapioni for such surfaces.
In an ambient space with rotational symmetry around an axis (which include the Hyperbolic and Euclidean spaces), we study the evolution under the volume-preserving mean curvature flow of a revolution hypersurface M generated by a graph over the axis of revolution and with boundary in two totally geodesic hypersurfaces (tgh for short). Requiring that, for each time t, the evolving hypersurface M_t meets such tgh ortogonally, we prove that: a) the flow exists while M_t does not touch the axis of rotation; b) throughout the time interval of existence, b1) the generating curve of M_t remains a gra…
We study immersed, connected, umbilic hypersurfaces in the Heisenberg group $H_{n}$ with $n$ $\geq $ $2.$ We show that such a hypersurface, if closed, must be rotationally invariant up to a Heisenberg translation. Moreover, we prove that, among others, Pansu spheres are the only such spheres with positive constant sigma-k curvature up to Heisenberg translations.
In this paper, we prove that minimal hypersurfaces when $n\geq 3$ and nonzero constant mean curvature hypersurfaces when $n\geq2$ foliated by spheres in parallel horizontal hyperplanes in ${\mathbb{H}}^n \times \mathbb{R}$ must be rotationally symmetric.
In this paper, we determine the maximally stable, rotationally invariant domains on the catenoids $\cC_a$ (minimal surfaces invariant by rotations) in the Heisenberg group with a left-invariant metric. We show that these catenoids have Morse index at least 3 and we bound the index from above in terms of the parameter $a$. We also show that the index of $\cC_a$ tends to infinity with $a$. Finally, we study the rotationally symmetric stable domains on the higher dimensional catenoids.
In previous work [GIKW21], we have presented evidence from numerical simulations that the Type-II singularities of mean curvature flow (MCF) of rotationally-symmetric, complete, noncompact embedded hypersurfaces constructed in [IW19, IWZ21] are stable. More precisely, it is shown in that paper that for small rotationally-symmetric perturbations of initial embeddings near the "tip", numerical simulations of MCF of such initial embeddings develop the same Type-II singularities with the same "bowl soliton" blowup behaviors in a neighborhood of the singularity. It is also shown in that work that f…
We show that any strictly mean convex translator of dimension $n\geq 3$ which admits a cylindrical estimate and a corresponding gradient estimate is rotationally symmetric. As a consequence, we deduce that any translating solution of the mean curvature flow which arises as a blow-up limit of a two-convex mean curvature flow of compact immersed hypersurfaces of dimension $n\geq 3$ is rotationally symmetric. The proof is rather robust, and applies to a more general class of translator equations. As a particular application, we prove an analogous result for a class of flows of embedded hypersurfa…
Our aim is to study invariant hypersurfaces immersed in the Euclidean space $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$, whose mean curvature is given as a linear function in the unit sphere $\mathbb{S}^n$ depending on its Gauss map. These hypersurfaces are closely related with the theory of manifolds with density, since their weighted mean curvature in the sense of Gromov is constant. In this paper we obtain explicit parametrizations of constant curvature hypersurfaces, and also give a classification of rotationally invariant hypersurfaces.
In the context of sub-Riemannian Heisenberg groups Hn, n \geq 1, we shall study Isoperimetric Profiles, which are closed compact hypersurfaces having constant horizontal mean curvature, very similar to ellipsoids. Our main goal is to study the stability of Isoperimetric Profiles.
Let $D$ be a closed disk centered at the origin in the horizontal hyperplane $\{t=0\}$ of the sub-Riemannian Heisenberg group $\hh^n$, and $C$ the vertical cylinder over $D$. We prove that any finite perimeter set $E$ such that $D\subset E\subset C$ has perimeter larger than or equal to the one of the rotationally symmetric sphere with constant mean curvature of the same volume, and that equality holds only for the spheres using a recent result by Monti and Vittone [12].
In this paper, we study the existence, uniqueness and asymptotic behavior of rotationally symmetric translating solitons of the mean curvature flow in Minkowski space. We also study the asymptotic behavior and the strict convexity of general solitons of such flows.
For $n\geq 2$ we define a notion of umbilicity for hypersurfaces in the Heisenberg group $H_{n}$. We classify umbilic hypersurfaces in some cases, and prove that Pansu spheres are the only umbilic spheres with positive constant $p$(or horizontal)-mean curvature in $H_{n}$ up to Heisenberg translations.
After introducing the sub-Riemannian geometry of the Heisenberg group Hn, n \geq 1, we recall some basics about hypersurfaces endowed with the H-perimeter measure and horizontal Green's formulas. Then, we describe a class of compact closed hypersurfaces of constant horizontal mean curvature called "Isoperimetric Profiles"(they are not CC-balls!); see Section 2.1. Our main purpose is to study a closed eigenvalue problem on Isoperimetric Profiles, i.e. LHS ϕ+ λϕ= 0, where LHS is a 2nd order horizontal tangential operator analogous to the Laplace-Beltrami operator; see Section 1.5. This is done s…
We show the analogy of Cauchy's surface area formula for the Heisenberg groups $\mathbb{H}_n$ for $n\geq 1$, which states that the p-area of any compact hypersurface $Σ$ in $\mathbb{H}_n$ with its p-normal vector defined almost everywhere on $Σ$ is the average of its projected p-areas onto the orthogonal complements of all p-normal vectors of the Pansu spheres (up to a constant). The formula provides a geometric interpretation of the p-areas defined by Cheng-Hwang-Malchiodi-Yang [9] in $\mathbb{H}_1$ and Cheng-Hwang-Yang [7] in $\mathbb{H}_n$ for $n\geq 2$. We also characterize the projected a…
Given a smooth, symmetric, homogeneous of degree one function $f\left(λ_{1},\cdots,\,λ_{n}\right)$ satisfying $\partial_{i}f>0$ for all $i=1,\cdots,\,n$, and a rotationally symmetric cone $\mathcal{C}$ in $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$, we show that there is a $f$ self-shrinker (i.e. a hypersurface $Σ$ in $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$ which satisfies $f\left(κ_{1},\cdots,\,κ_{n}\right)+\frac{1}{2}X\cdot N=0$, where $X$ is the position vector, $N$ is the unit normal vector, and $κ_{1},\cdots,\,κ_{n}$ are principal curvatures of $Σ$) that is asymptotic to $\mathcal{C}$ at infinity.
We prove that the configuration space of equidistant triples on the Heisenberg group equipped with the Korányi metric, is isomorphic to a hypersurface of $\mathbb{R}^3$.
We continue the study, initiated by the first two authors in \cite{IW19}, of Type-II curvature blow-up in mean curvature flow of complete noncompact embedded hypersurfaces. In particular, we construct mean curvature flow solutions, in the rotationally symmetric class, with the following precise asymptotics near the "vanishing" time $T$: (1) The highest curvature concentrates at the tip of the hypersurface (an umbilical point) and blows up at the rate $(T-t)^{-1}$. (2) In a neighbourhood of the tip, the solution converges to a translating soliton known as the bowl soliton. (3) Near spatial infi…
We provide an explicit description of all rigid hypersurfaces that are equivalent to a Heisenberg sphere. These hypersurfaces are determined by 4 real parameters. The defining equations of the rigid spheres can also be viewed as the complete solution of a non-linear PDE that expresses the vanishing Cartan curvature condition for rigid hypersurfaces.
In a rotationally symmetric space $\oM$ around an axis A (whose precise definition includes all real space forms), we consider a domain $G$ limited by two equidistant hypersurfaces orthogonal to A. Let $M \subset \oM$ be a revolution hypersurface generated by a graph over A, with boundary in $\partial G$ and orthogonal to it. We study the evolution $M_t$ of $M$ under the volume-preserving mean curvature flow requiring that the boundary of $M_t$ rests on $\partial G$ and keeps orthogonal to it. We prove that: a) the generating curve of $M_t$ remains a graph; b) the flow exists while $M_t$ does …
In this paper we consider smooth oriented hypersurfaces in 2-step nilpotent Lie groups with a left invariant metric and derive an expression for the Laplacian of the Gauss map for such hypersurfaces in the general case and in some particular cases. In the case of CMC-hypersurface in the (2m+1)-dimensional Heisenberg group we also derive necessary and sufficient conditions for the Gauss map to be harmonic and prove that for m=1 all CMC-surfaces with the harmonic Gauss map are "cylinders".
We construct a one-parameter family of properly embedded minimal annuli in the Heisenberg group Nil_3 endowed with a left-invariant Riemannian metric. These annuli are not rotationally invariant. This family gives a vertical half-space theorem and proves that each complete minimal graph in Nil_3 is entire. Also, the sister surface of an entire minimal graph in Nil_3 is an entire constant mean curvature 1/2 graph in H^2 x R, and conversely. This gives a classification of all entire constant mean curvature 1/2 graphs in H^2 x R. Finally we construct properly embedded constant mean curvature 1/2 …
We study the phenomenon of Type-II curvature blow-up in mean curvature flows of rotationally symmetric noncompact embedded hypersurfaces. Using analytic techniques based on formal matched asymptotics and the construction of upper and lower barrier solutions enveloping formal solutions with prescribed behavior, we show that for each initial hypersurface considered, a mean curvature flow solution exhibits the following behavior near the "vanishing" time $T$: (1) The highest curvature concentrates at the tip of the hypersurface (an umbilic point), and for each choice of the parameter $γ>1/2$, the…
To any completely integrable second-order system of real or complex partial differential equations in n > 1 independent variables and in one dependent variable, Mohsen Hachtroudi associated in 1937 a normal projective (Cartan) connection, and he computed its curvature. By means of a natural transfer of jet polynomials to the associated submanifold of solutions, what the vanishing of the Hachtroudi curvature gives can be precisely translated in order to characterize when both families of Segre varieties and of conjugate Segre varieties associated to a Levi nondegenerate real analytic hypersurfa…
We use variational arguments to introduce a notion of mean curvature for surfaces in the Heisenberg group H^1 endowed with its Carnot-Carathéodory distance. By analyzing the first variation of area, we characterize C^2 stationary surfaces for the area as those with mean curvature zero (or constant if a volume-preserving condition is assumed) and such that the characteristic curves meet orthogonally the singular curves. Moreover, a Minkowski type formula relating the area, the mean curvature, and the volume is obtained for volume-preserving area-stationary surfaces enclosing a given region. As …
We present a numerical study of the local stability of mean curvature flow of rotationally symmetric, complete noncompact hypersurfaces with Type-II curvature blowup. Our numerical analysis employs a novel overlap method that constructs "numerically global" (i.e., with spatial domain arbitrarily large but finite) flow solutions with initial data covering analytically distinct regions. Our numerical results show that for certain prescribed families of perturbations, there are two classes of initial data that lead to distinct behaviors under mean curvature flow. Firstly, there is a "near" class …
Let S be a C^2 H-minimal noncharacteristic hypersurface in the first Heisenberg group. We show that if S contains a graphical strip, then it is not a stable minimal surface. Moreover, we show that if S is a C^2 H-minimal noncharacteristic entire graph which is not itself a vertical plane, then S contains a graphical strip. Thus, as a corollary, we obtain an analogue of the Bernstein theorem: the only stable C^2 H-minimal noncharacteristic entire graphs are the vertical planes.
In this work, we study various properties of embedded hypersurfaces in $1+1+2$ decomposed spacetimes with a preferred spatial direction, denoted $e^μ$, which are orthogonal to the fluid flow velocity of the spacetime and admit a proper conformal transformation. To ensure a non-vanishing positivity scalar curvature of the induced metric, we impose that the scalar curvature of the conformal metric is non-negative and that the associated conformal factor satisfies $\hatφ^2+2\hat{\hatφ}>0$, where $\hat{\ast}$ denotes derivative along $e^μ$. Firstly, it is demonstrated that such hypersurface is eit…
In this paper, we study the precise asymptotics of noncompact Type-IIb solutions to the mean curvature flow. Precisely, for each real number $γ>0$, we construct mean curvature flow solutions, in the rotationally symmetric class, with the following precise asymptotics as $t\nearrow\infty$: (1) The highest curvature concentrates at the tip of the hypersurface (an umbilical point) and blows up at the Type-IIb rate $(2t+1)^{(γ-1)/2}$. (2) In a neighbourhood of the tip, the Type-IIb blow-up of the solution converges to a translating soliton known as the bowl soliton. (3) Near spatial infinity, the …
This paper aims to define and study currents and slices of currents in the Heisenberg group $\mathbb{H}^n$. Currents, depending on their integration properties and on those of their boundaries, can be classified into subspaces and, assuming their support to be compact, we can work with currents of finite mass, define the notion of slices of Heisenberg currents and show some important properties for them. While some such properties are similarly true in Riemannian settings, others carry deep consequences because they do not include the slices of the middle dimension $n$, which opens new challen…
We address the problem of integrability of the sub-Riemannian mean curvature of an embedded hypersurface around isolated characteristic points. The main contribution of this note is the introduction of a concept of mildly degenerate characteristic point for a smooth surface of the Heisenberg group, in a neighborhood of which the sub-Riemannian mean curvature is integrable (with respect to the perimeter measure induced by the Euclidean structure). As a consequence we partially answer to a question posed by Danielli-Garofalo-Nhieu in [Danielli D., Garofalo N., Nhieu D.M., Proc. Amer. Math. Soc.,…
We study the strong maximum principle for horizontal (p-) mean curvature operator and p-(sub)laplacian operator on subriemannian manifolds including, in particular, Heisenberg groups and Heisenberg cylinders. Under a certain Hormander type condition on vector fields, we show the strong maximum principle holds in higher dimensions for two cases: (a) the touching point is nonsingular; (b) the touching point is an isolated singular point for one of comparison functions. For a background subriemannian manifold with local symmetry of isometric translations, we have the strong maximum principle for …
This paper is related to the problem of finding a good notion of rectifiability in sub-Riemannian geometry. In particular, we study which kind of results can be expected for smooth hypersurfaces in Carnot groups. Our main contribution will be a consequence of the following result: there exists a $C^{\infty}$ hypersurface $S$ without characteristic points that has uncountably many pairwise non-isomorphic tangent groups on every positive-measure subset. The example is found in a Carnot group of topological dimension 8, it has Hausdorff dimension 12 and so we use on it the Hausdorff measure $\mat…
In this paper, we study entire translating solutions $u(x)$ to a mean curvature flow equation in Minkowski space. We show that if $Σ=\{(x, u(x))| x\in\mathbb{R}^n\}$ is a strictly spacelike hypersurface, then $Σ$ reduces to a strictly convex rank k soliton in $\mathbb{R}^{k, 1}$ (after splitting off trivial factors) whose "blowdown" converges to a multiple $λ\in(0, 1)$ of a positively homogeneous degree one convex function in $\mathbb{R}^k$. We also show that there is nonuniqueness as the rotationally symmetric solution may be perturbed to a solution by an arbitrary smooth order one perturbati…
We study stable constant mean curvature (CMC) hypersurfaces $Σ$ in slabs in a product space $M\times\r,$ where $M$ is an orientable Riemannian manifold. We obtain a characterization of stable cylinders and prove that if $Σ$ is not a cylinder then it is locally a vertical graph. Moreover, in case $M$ is $\h^n,\r^n$ or $\s_+^n$ and each of its boundary components is embedded then $Σ$ is rotationally invariant. When $M$ has dimension 2 and Gaussian curvature bounded from below by a positive constant $κ,$ we prove there is no stable CMC with free boundary connecting the boundary components of a sl…
Generalizing results of Chou and Wang \cite{1} we study the flows of the leaves $(M_Θ)_{Θ>0}$ of a foliation of $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}\setminus \{0\}$ consisting of uniformly convex hypersurfaces in the direction of their outer normals with speeds $-\log(F/f)$. For quite general functions $F$ of the principal curvatures of the flow hypersurfaces and $f$ a smooth and positive function on $S^n$ (considered as a function of the normal) we show that there is a distinct leaf $M_{Θ_{*}}$ in this foliation with the property that the flow starting from $M_{Θ_{*}}$ converges to a translating solution of the…
In this paper we aim at identifying the level sets of the gauge norm in the Heisenberg group $\mathbb{H}^n$ via the prescription of their (non-constant) horizontal mean curvature. We establish a uniqueness result in $\mathbb{H}^1$ under an assumption on the location of the singular set, and in $\mathbb{H}^n$ for $n\geq 2$ in the proper class of horizontally umbilical hypersurfaces
We consider the reduced Allen-Cahn action functional, which appears as the sharp interface limit of the Allen-Cahn action functional and can be understood as a formal action functional for a stochastically perturbed mean curvature flow. For suitable evolutions of generalized hypersurfaces this functional consists of the sum of the squares of the mean curvature and of the velocity vector, integrated over time and space. For given initial and final conditions we investigate the corresponding action minimization problem. We give a generalized formulation and prove compactness and lower semicontin…
The purpose of this paper is twofold: firstly, to establish sufficient conditions under which the mean curvature flow supported on a hypersphere with exterior Dirichlet boundary exists globally in time and converges to a minimal surface, and secondly, to illustrate the application of Killing vector fields in the preservation of graphicality for the mean curvature flow with free boundary. To this end we focus on the mean curvature flow of a topological annulus with inner boundary meeting a standard n-sphere in \R^{n+1} perpendicularly and outer boundary fixed to an (n-1)-sphere with radius R>1 …
