On the uniqueness of the foliation of spheres of constant mean curvature in asymptotically flat 3-manifolds

In this note we study constant mean curvature surfaces in asymptotically flat 3-manifolds. We prove that, outside a given compact subset in an asymptotically flat 3-manifold with positive mass, stable spheres of given constant mean curvature are unique. Therefore we are able to conclude that the foliation of stable spheres of constant mean curvature in an asymptotically flat 3-manifold with positive mass outside a given compact subset is unique.

     

Eine Charakterisierung der Sphäre im E3

It is well known, that in E³ the spheres are the closed convex C² -surfaces having the property, that each of their closed C²-curves with the total geodesic curvature O bisects the area of the surface. This characterization will be transmitted into the theory of convex surfaces founded by A.D.Alexandrov, where convex surfaces without any differentiability property are studied.     

Parabolic constructions of asymptotically flat 3-metrics of prescribed scalar curvature

In 1993, Bartnik (J. Differ. Geom. 37(1):37–71) introduced a quasi-spherical construction of metrics of prescribed scalar curvature on 3-manifolds. Under quasi-spherical ansatz, the problem is converted into the initial value problem for a semi-linear parabolic equation of the lapse function. The original ansatz of Bartnik started with a background foliation with round metrics on the 2-sphere leaves. This has been generalized by several authors (Shi and Tam in J. Differ. Geom. 62(1):79–125, 2002; Smith in Gen. Relat. Gravit. 41(5):1013–1024, 2009; Smith and Weinstein in Commun. Anal. Geom. 12(3):511–551, 2004) under various assumptions on the background foliation. In this article, we consider background foliations given by conformal round metrics, and by the Ricci flow on 2-spheres. We discuss conditions on the scalar curvature function and on the foliation that guarantee the solvability of the parabolic equation, and thus the existence of asymptotically flat 3-metrics with a prescribed inner boundary. In particular, many examples of asymptotically flat-scalar flat 3-metrics with outermost minimal surfaces are obtained.     

An algorithm for evolutionary surfaces

Summary An Algorithm is presented which allows to split the calculation of the mean curvature flow of surfaces with or without boundary into a series of Poisson problems on a series of surfaces. This gives a new method to solve Plateau's problem forH-surfaces.     

Bartnik’s Mass and Hamilton’s Modified Ricci Flow

We provide estimates on the Bartnik mass of constant mean curvature surfaces which are diffeomorphic to spheres and have positive mean curvature. We prove that the Bartnik mass is bounded from above by the Hawking mass and a new notion we call the asphericity mass. The asphericity mass is defined by applying Hamilton’s modified Ricci flow and depends only upon the restricted metric of the surface and not on its mean curvature. The theorem is proven by studying a class of asymptotically flat Riemannian manifolds foliated by surfaces satisfying Hamilton’s modified Ricci flow with prescribed scalar curvature. Such manifolds were first constructed by the first author in her dissertation conducted under the supervision of M. T. Wang. We make a further study of this class of manifolds which we denote Ham₃, bounding the ADM masses of such manifolds and analyzing the rigid case when the Hawking mass of the inner surface of the manifold agrees with its ADM mass.     

Asymptotic analysis for surfaces with large constant mean curvature and free boundaries

We prove that simply connected H-surfaces with bounded area and free boundary in a domain necessarily concentrate at a critical point of the mean curvature of the boundary of this domain.     

CMC Foliations of Closed Manifolds

We prove that every closed, smooth \(n\)-manifold \(X\) admits a Riemannian metric together with a constant mean curvature (CMC) foliation if and only if its Euler characteristic is zero, where by a CMC foliation we mean a smooth, codimension-one, transversely oriented foliation with leaves of CMC and where the value of the CMC can vary from leaf to leaf. Furthermore, we prove that this CMC foliation of \(X\) can be chosen so that when \(n\ge 2\), the constant values of the mean curvatures of its leaves change sign. We also prove a general structure theorem for any such non-minimal CMC foliation of \(X\) that describes relationships between the geometry and topology of the leaves, including the property that there exist compact leaves for every attained value of the mean curvature.     

Constant Mean Curvature Surfaces with Boundaryin Hyperbolic Space

 We study constant mean curvature compact surfaces immersed in hyperbolic space with non-empty boundary (=H-surfaces). We prove that the only H-surfaces with boundary circular and 0≤∣H∣≤1, are the umbilical examples. When the surface is embedded, conditions to be umbilical are given. Finally, we characterize umbilical surfaces bounded by a circle among all H-discs with small area.     

A result on large surfaces of prescribed mean curvature in a Riemannian manifold

Plateau's problem (PP) is studied for surfaces of prescribed mean curvature spanned by a given contour in a 3-d Riemannian manifold. We consider the local situation where a neighborhood of a given point on the manifold is described by a single normal chart. Under certain conditions on and the contour, existence of a small -surface to (PP) is guaranteed by [HK]. The purpose of this paper is the investigation of large -surfaces. Our result states: For sufficiently large (constant) mean curvature and a sufficiently small contour depending on the local geometry of the manifold, (PP) has at least two solutions, a small one and a large one. The proof is based on mountain pass arguments and uses – in contrast to results in the 3-d Euclidean space and in order to derive conformality directly – also a deformation constructed by variations of the independent variable. Received November 8, 1995 / Accepted April 29, 1996     

On mean curvature flow of singular Riemannian foliations: Noncompact cases

In this paper we investigate the mean curvature flow (MCF) of a regular leaf of a closed generalized isoparametric foliation as initial datum, generalizing previous results of Radeschi and the first author. We show that, under bounded curvature conditions, any finite time singularity is a singular leaf, and the singularity is of type I. The new techniques also allow us to discuss the existence of basins of attraction, how cylinder structures can affect convergence of basic MCF of immersed submanifolds and assure convergence of MCF of non-closed leaves of generalized isoparametric foliation on compact manifold.     

Large outlying stable constant mean curvature spheres in initial data sets

We give examples of asymptotically flat three-manifolds \((M,g)\) which admit arbitrarily large constant mean curvature spheres that are far away from the center of the manifold. This resolves a question raised by Huisken and Yau (Invent Math 124:281–311, 1996). On the other hand, we show that such surfaces cannot exist when \((M,g)\) has nonnegative scalar curvature. This result depends on an intricate relationship between the scalar curvature of the initial data set and the isoperimetric ratio of large stable constant mean curvature surfaces.     

On asymptotically harmonic manifolds of negative curvature

We study asymptotically harmonic manifolds of negative curvature, without any cocompactness or homogeneity assumption. We show that asymptotic harmonicity provides a lot of information on the asymptotic geometry of these spaces: in particular, we determine the volume entropy, the spectrum and the relative densities of visual and harmonic measures on the ideal boundary. Then, we prove an asymptotic analogue of the classical mean value property of harmonic manifolds, and we characterize asymptotically harmonic manifolds, among Cartan–Hadamard spaces of strictly negative curvature, by the existence of an asymptotic equivalent \(\tau (u)\mathrm {e}^{Er}\) for the volume-density of geodesic spheres (with \(\tau \) constant in case \(DR_M\) is bounded). Finally, we show the existence of a Margulis function, and explicitly compute it, for all asymptotically harmonic manifolds.     

Constant Mean Curvature Surfaces with Boundaryin Hyperbolic Space

 We study constant mean curvature compact surfaces immersed in hyperbolic space with non-empty boundary (=H-surfaces). We prove that the only H-surfaces with boundary circular and 0≤∣H∣≤1, are the umbilical examples. When the surface is embedded, conditions to be umbilical are given. Finally, we characterize umbilical surfaces bounded by a circle among all H-discs with small area. Received 27 March 1997; in final form 11 June 1998     

On tori without conjugate points

Summary In this paper we consider Riemannian metrics without conjugate points on an n-torus. Recent work of J. Heber established that the gradient vector fields of Busemann functions on the universal cover of such a manifold induce a natural foliation (akin to the weak stable foliation for a Riemannian manifold with negative sectional curvature) on the unit tangent bundle. The main result in the paper is that the metric is flat if this foliation is Lipschitz. We also prove that this foliation is Lipschitz if and only if the metric has bounded asymptotes. This confirms a conjecture of E. Hopf in this case.Oblatum 22-IX-1993 & 25-IV-1994Supported in part by NSF grant #DMS90-01707 and #DMS85-05550 while at MSRISupported by an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship     

A Generalized Mass Involving Higher Order Symmetric Functions of the Curvature Tensor

We define a generalized mass for asymptotically flat manifolds using some higher order symmetric function of the curvature tensor. This mass is non-negative when the manifold is locally conformally flat and the σ _k curvature vanishes at infinity. In addition, with the above assumptions, if the mass is zero, then, near infinity, the manifold is isometric to a Euclidean end.     

On the Topology of Vacuum Spacetimes

We prove that there are no restrictions on the spatial topology of asymptotically flat solutions of the vacuum Einstein equations in (n + 1)-dimensions. We do this by gluing a solution of the vacuum constraint equations on an arbitrary compact manifold Sⁿ \Sigma^n to an asymptotically Euclidean solution of the constraints on \mathbbRⁿ \mathbb{R}^n . For any Sⁿ \Sigma^n which does not admit a metric of positive scalar curvature, this provides for the existence of asymptotically flat vacuum spacetimes with no maximal slices. Our main theorem is a special case of a more general gluing construction for nondegenerate solutions of the vacuum constraint equations which have some restrictions on the mean curvature, but for which the mean curvature is not necessarily constant. This generalizes the construction [16], which is restricted to constant mean curvature data.     

The Newton transformation and new integral formulae for foliated manifolds

In this article, we show that the Newton transformations of the shape operator can be applied successfully to foliated manifolds. Using these transformations, we generalize known integral formulae (due to Brito–Langevin–Rosenberg, Ranjan, Walczak, etc.) for foliations of codimension one. We obtain integral formulae involving rth mean curvature of the second fundamental form of a foliation, the Jacobi operator in the direction orthogonal to the foliation, and their products. We apply our formulae to totally umbilical foliations and foliations whose leaves have constant second order mean curvature.     

Biharmonic submanifolds with parallel mean curvature vector field in spheres

We present some results on the boundedness of the mean curvature of proper biharmonic submanifolds in spheres. A partial classification result for proper biharmonic submanifolds with parallel mean curvature vector field in spheres is obtained. Then, we completely classify the proper biharmonic submanifolds in spheres with parallel mean curvature vector field and parallel Weingarten operator associated to the mean curvature vector field.     

The decomposition of curvature netted hypersurfaces

We define the concept of a curvature netted hypersurface and investigate in what case the hypersurface is covered by a twisted product of spheres (or topological product of spheres). All hypersurfaces in a space form such that the number of mutually distinct principal curvatures is constant (i.e. each principal curvature has constant multiplicity) are curvature netted hypersurfaces. Also, we state some inductive constructions of the hypersurfaces, where we use the discussion related to the tube.