We consider the sub-Riemannian metric $g_{h}$ on $\mathbb{S}^3$ provided by the restriction of the Riemannian metric of curvature 1 to the plane distribution orthogonal to the Hopf vector field. We compute the geodesics associated to the Carnot-Carathéodory distance and we show that, depending on their curvature, they are closed or dense subsets of a Clifford torus.
We study area-stationary surfaces with or without a volume constraint in $(\mathbb{S}^3,g_{h})$. By following the ideas and techniques in [RR] we introduce a variational notion of mean curvature, characterize stationary surfaces, and prove classification results for complete volume-preserving area-stationary surfaces with non-empty singular set. We also use the behaviour of the Carnot-Carathéodory geodesics and the ruling property of constant mean curvature surfaces to show that the only $C^2$ compact, connected, embedded surfaces in $(\mathbb{S}^3,g_{h})$ with empty singular set and constant mean curvature $H$ such that $H/\sqrt{1+H^2}$ is an irrational number, are Clifford tori. Finally we describe which are the complete rotationally invariant surfaces with constant mean curvature in $(\mathbb{S}^3,g_{h})$.
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 obtain a comparison formula for integrals of mean curvatures of Riemannian hypersurfaces, via Reilly's identities. As applications we derive several geometric inequalities for a convex hypersurface $Γ$ in a Cartan-Hadamard manifold $M$. In particular we show that the first mean curvature integral of a convex hypersurface $γ$ nested inside $Γ$ cannot exceed that of $Γ$, which leads to a sharp lower bound in dimension $3$ for the total first mean curvature of $Γ$ in terms of the volume it bounds in $M$. This monotonicity property is extended to all mean curvature integrals when $γ$ is paralle…
We prove that for a Baire-generic Riemannian metric on a closed smooth manifold, the union of the images of all stationary geodesic nets forms a dense set.
This thesis mainly treats two developments of the classical theory of hypersurfaces inside pseudo-Riemannian space forms. The former - a joint work with Francesco Bonsante - consists in the study of immersions of smooth manifolds into holomorphic Riemannian space forms of constant curvature -1 (including SL(2,C) with a multiple of its Killing form): this leads to a Gauss-Codazzi theorem, it suggests an approach to holomorphic transitioning of immersions into pseudo-Riemannian space forms, a trick to construct holomorphic maps into the PSL(2,C)-character variety, and leads to a restatement of B…
We consider the sub-Riemannian $3$-sphere $(\mathbb{S}^3,g_h)$ obtained by restriction of the Riemannian metric of constant curvature $1$ to the planar distribution orthogonal to the vertical Hopf vector field. It is known that $(\mathbb{S}^3,g_h)$ contains a family of spherical surfaces $\{\mathcal{S}_λ\}_{λ\geq 0}$ with constant mean curvature $λ$. In this work we first prove that the two closed half-spheres of $\mathcal{S}_0$ with boundary $C_0=\{0\}\times\mathbb{S}^1$ minimize the sub-Riemannian area among compact $C^1$ surfaces with the same boundary. We also see that the only $C^2$ solut…
The existence of a conjugate point on the volume-preserving diffeomorphism group of a compact Riemannian manifold M is related to the Lagrangian stability of a solution of the incompressible Euler equation on M. The Misiolek curvature is a reasonable criterion for the existence of a conjugate point on the volume-preserving diffeomorphism group corresponding to a stationary solution of the incompressible Euler equation. In this article, we introduce a class of stationary solutions on an arbitrary Riemannian manifold whose behavior is nice with respect to the Misiolek curvature and give a positi…
Although travelling faster than the speed of light in vacuum is not physically allowed, the analogous bound in medium can be exceeded by a moving particle. For an electron in dielectric material this leads to emission of photons which is usually referred to as Cherenkov radiation. In this article a related mathematical system for waves in inhomogeneous anisotropic medium with a maximum of three polarisation directions is studied. The waves are assumed to satisfy $P^k_j u_k (x,t) = S_j(x,t)$, where $P$ is a vector-valued wave operator that depends on a Riemannian metric and $S $ is a point sour…
