Convexity and the Average Curvature of Plane Curves

The average curvature of a rectifiable closed curve in R2 is its total absolute curvature divided by its length. If a rectifiable closed curve in R2 is contained in the interior of a convex set D then its average curvature is at least as large as the average curvature of the simple closed curve D which bounds the convex set.     

On the average curvature of a convex curve in a surface of nonpositive Gaussian curvature

In this paper, the upper bound of the average curvature of a convex curve in a simply connected surface of nonpositive Gaussian curvature is obtained.

     

Diameter and Curvature: Intriguing Analogies

We highlight intriguing analogies between the diameter of a polytope and the largest possible total curvature of the associated central path. We prove continuous analogues of the results of Holt and Klee, and Klee and Walkup: We construct a family of polytopes which attain the conjectured order of the largest curvature, and prove that the special case where the number of inequalities is twice the dimension is equivalent to the general case. We show that the conjectured bound for the average diameter of a bounded cell of a simple hyperplane arrangement is asymptotically tight for fixed dimension. Links with the conjecture of Hirsch, Haimovich's probabilistic analysis of the shadow-vertex simplex algorithm, and the result of Dedieu, Malajovich and Shub on the average total curvature of a bounded cell are presented.     

An Equivalence of Scalar Curvatures on Hermitian Manifolds

For a Kähler metric, the Riemannian scalar curvature is equal to twice the Chern scalar curvature. The question we address here is whether this equivalence can hold for a non-Kähler Hermitian metric. For such metrics, if they exist, the Chern scalar curvature would have the same geometric meaning as the Riemannian scalar curvature. Recently, Liu–Yang showed that if this equivalence of scalar curvatures holds even in average over a compact Hermitian manifold, then the metric must in fact be Kähler. However, we prove that a certain class of non-compact complex manifolds do admit Hermitian metrics for which this equivalence holds. Subsequently, the question of to what extent the behavior of said metrics can be dictated is addressed and a classification theorem is proved.     

On the Existence of Focal Points near Closed Geodesics on Surfaces

We establish some criteria for the existence or nonexistence of focal points near closed geodesics on surfaces. These criteria are in terms of the curvature of the manifold along the closed geodesic and the average values of the partial derivatives of the curvature in the direction perpendicular to the geodesic. Our criteria lead to a new family of examples of surfaces with no focal points. We also show that if S is a compact surface with no focal points and an inequality relating the curvature of the surface to the curvature of the horocycles holds, then the horocycles (considered as curves in S) are uniformly C ^2+Lipschitz.     

Generalized bochner theorems and the spectrum of complete manifolds

Bochner's theorem that a compact Riemannian manifold with positive Ricci curvature has vanishing first cohomology group has various extensions to complete noncompact manifolds with Ricci possibly negative. One still has a vanishing theorem for L ² harmonic one-forms if the infimum of the spectrum of the Laplacian on functions is greater than minus the infimum of the Ricci curvature. This result and its analogues for p-forms yield vanishing results for certain infinite volume hyperbolic manifolds. This spectral condition also imposes topological restrictions on the ends of the manifold. More refined results are obtained by taking a certain Brownian motion average of the Ricci curvature; if this average is positive, one has a vanishing theorem for the first cohomology group with compact supports on the universal cover of a compact manifold. There are corresponding results for L ² harmonic spinors on spin manifolds.     

Random Sequential Adsorption of Discs on Surfaces of Constant Curvature: Plane,Sphere, Hyperboloid,and Projective Plane

We present an algorithm to simulate random sequential adsorption (random “parking”) of discs on constant curvature surfaces: the plane, sphere, hyperboloid, and projective plane, all embedded in three-dimensional space. We simulate complete parkings efficiently by explicitly calculating the boundary of the available area in which discs can park and concentrating new points in this area. We use our algorithm to study the number distribution and density of discs parked in each space, where for the plane and hyperboloid we consider two different periodic tilings each. We make several notable observations: (1) on the sphere, there is a critical disc radius such the number of discs parked is always exactly four: the random parking is deterministic. We prove this statement and also show that random parking on the surface of a d-dimensional sphere would have deterministic behaviour at the same critical radius. (2) The average number of parked discs does not always monotonically increase as the disc radius decreases: on the plane (square with periodic boundary conditions), there is an interval of decreasing radius over which the average decreases. We give a heuristic explanation for this counterintuitive finding. (3) As the disc radius shrinks to zero, the density (average fraction of area covered by parked discs) appears to converge to the same constant for all spaces, though it is always slightly larger for a sphere and slightly smaller for a hyperboloid. Therefore, for parkings on a general curved surface we would expect higher local densities in regions of positive curvature and lower local densities in regions of negative curvature.     

High-Dimensional Menger-Type Curvatures—Part II: d-Separation and a Menagerie of Curvatures

We estimate d-dimensional least squares approximations of an arbitrary d-regular measure μ via discrete curvatures of d+2 variables. The main result bounds the least squares error of approximating μ (or its restrictions to balls) with a d-plane by an average of the discrete Menger-type curvature over a restricted set of simplices. Its proof is constructive and even suggests an algorithm for an approximate least squares d-plane. A consequent result bounds a multiscale error term (used for quantifying the approximation of μ with a sufficiently regular surface) by an integral of the discrete Menger-type curvature over all simplices. The preceding paper (part I) provided the opposite inequalities of these two results. This paper also demonstrates the use of a few other discrete curvatures which are different from the Menger-type curvature. Furthermore, it shows that a curvature suggested by Léger (Ann. Math. 149(3), pp. 831–869, 1999) does not fit within our framework.     

Incompatible elasticity and the immersion of non-flat Riemannian manifolds in Euclidean space

We study a geometric problem that originates from theories of nonlinear elasticity: given a non-flat n-dimensional Riemannian manifold with boundary, homeomorphic to a bounded subset of ? ⁿ , what is the minimum amount of deformation required in order to immerse it in a Euclidean space of the same dimension? The amount of deformation, which in the physical context is an elastic energy, is quantified by an average over a local metric discrepancy. We derive an explicit lower bound for this energy for the case where the scalar curvature of the manifold is non-negative. For n = 2 we generalize the result for surfaces of arbitrary curvature.     

Some results on the occurrence of compact minimal submanifolds

Varying the situation considered in Myers theorem, we show, via standard index form techniques, that a complete Riemannian manifold which admits a compact minimal submanifold is necessarily compact, provided a suitable curvature object is positive on the average along the geodesies issuing orthogonally from the minimal submanifold. By slightly recasting this result, one establishes the nonexistence of compact minimal submanifolds (in particular, closed geodesies) in complete noncompact manifolds which obey an appropriate curvature condition. A generalization of a result of Tipler concerning the occurrence of zeros of solutions to the scalar Jacobi equation is also obtained.     

The Chern–Osserman inequality for minimal surfaces in a Cartan–Hadamard manifold with strictly negative sectional curvatures

We state and prove a Chern–Osserman-type inequality in terms of the volume growth for minimal surfaces S which have finite total extrinsic curvature and are properly immersed in a Cartan–Hadamard manifold N with sectional curvatures bounded from above by a negative quantity K _N ≤b<0 and such that they are not too curved (on average) with respect to the hyperbolic space with constant sectional curvature given by the upper bound b. We also prove the same Chern–Osserman-type inequality for minimal surfaces with finite total extrinsic curvature and properly immersed in an asymptotically hyperbolic Cartan–Hadamard manifold N with sectional curvatures bounded from above by a negative quantity K _N ≤b<0.     

Total Curvature for <Emphasis Type="Italic">C</Emphasis><Superscript>∞</Superscript>-Singular Surfaces with Limiting Tangent Bundle

The total curvature of a compact C^∞-immersed surface in Euclidean 3-space ³ can be interpreted as the average number of critical points for a linear ‘height’ function. The Morse inequalities provide an intrinsic topological lower bound for the total curvature and ‘tight’ surfaces, which realize equality, have been an active topic of research. The objective of this paper is to describe the natural notion of total curvature for C^∞-singular surfaces which fail to immerse on C^∞-embedded closed curves, but which have a C^∞-globally defined unit normal (e.g. caustics, or critical images for mappings of 3-manifolds into Euclidean 3-space). For such surfaces total curvature consists of a sum of two-dimensional and one-dimensional integrals, which have various lower bounds. Large sets of LT-surfaces which realize equality are then constructed. As an application, the orthogonal projection of an immersed tight hypersurface in Euclidean 4-space is shown to have LT-tight critical image, and several related inequalities are given. Mathematics Subject Classifications (2000): 57N65, 14P99, 53C21, 53B25, 53B20.     

Ricci flow on a 3-manifold with positive scalar curvature

In this paper we consider Hamilton's Ricci flow on a 3-manifold with a metric of positive scalar curvature. We establish several a priori estimates for the Ricci flow which we believe are important in understanding possible singularities of the Ricci flow. For Ricci flow with initial metric of positive scalar curvature, we obtain a sharp estimate on the norm of the Ricci curvature in terms of the scalar curvature (which is not trivial even if the initial metric has non-negative Ricci curvature, a fact which is essential in Hamilton's estimates [R.S. Hamilton, Three-manifolds with positive Ricci curvature, J. Differential Geom. 17 (1982) 255-306]), some L²-estimates for the gradients of the Ricci curvature, and finally the Harnack type estimates for the Ricci curvature. These results are established through careful (and rather complicated and lengthy) computations, integration by parts and the maximum principles for parabolic equations.     

The Initial Drift of a 2D Droplet at Zero Temperature

We consider the 2D stochastic Ising model evolving according to the Glauber dynamics at zero temperature. We compute the initial drift for droplets which are suitable approximations of smooth domains. A specific spatial average of the derivative at time 0 of the volume variation of a droplet close to a boundary point is equal to its curvature multiplied by a direction dependent coefficient. We compute the explicit value of this coefficient.      

Bochner's Method for Cell Complexes and Combinatorial Ricci Curvature

   Abstract. In this paper we present a new notion of curvature for cell complexes. For each p , we define a p th combinatorial curvature function, which assigns a number to each p -cell of the complex. The curvature of a p -cell depends only on the relationships between the cell and its neighbors. In the case that p=1 , the curvature function appears to play the role for cell complexes that Ricci curvature plays for Riemannian manifolds. We begin by deriving a combinatorial analogue of Bochner's theorems, which demonstrate that there are topological restrictions to a space having a cell decomposition with everywhere positive curvature. Much of the rest of this paper is devoted to comparing the properties of the combinatorial Ricci curvature with those of its Riemannian avatar.     

Bochner's Method for Cell Complexes and Combinatorial Ricci Curvature

Abstract. In this paper we present a new notion of curvature for cell complexes. For each p , we define a p th combinatorial curvature function, which assigns a number to each p -cell of the complex. The curvature of a p -cell depends only on the relationships between the cell and its neighbors. In the case that p=1 , the curvature function appears to play the role for cell complexes that Ricci curvature plays for Riemannian manifolds. We begin by deriving a combinatorial analogue of Bochner's theorems, which demonstrate that there are topological restrictions to a space having a cell decomposition with everywhere positive curvature. Much of the rest of this paper is devoted to comparing the properties of the combinatorial Ricci curvature with those of its Riemannian avatar.     

An optimal parabolic estimate and its applications in prescribing scalar curvature on some open manifolds with Ricci \ge 0

By establishing an optimal comparison result on the heat kernel of the conformal Laplacian on open manifolds with nonnegative Ricci curvature, (a) we show that many manifolds with positive scalar curvature do not possess conformal metrics with scalar curvature bounded below by a positive constant; (b) we identify a class of functions with the following property: If the manifold has a scalar curvature in this class, then there exists a complete conformal metric whose scalar curvature is any given function in this class. This class is optimal in some sense; (c) we have identified all manifolds with nonnegative Ricci curvature, which are “uniformly” conformal to manifolds with zero scalar curvature. Even in the Euclidean case, we obtain a necessary and sufficient condition under which the main existence results in [Ni1] and [KN] on prescribing nonnegative scalar curvature will hold. This condition had been sought in several papers in the last two decades. Received: 11 November 1998 / Revised: 7 April 1999     

Homology vanishing theorems for submanifolds

We relate intrinsic and extrinsic curvature invariants to the homology groups of submanifolds in space forms of nonnegative curvature. More precisely, we provide bounds for the squared length of the second fundamental form, or the Ricci curvature in terms of the mean curvature, which force homology to vanish in a range of intermediate dimensions. Moreover, we give examples which show that these conditions are sharp.

     

Blowing up and desingularizing constant scalar curvature Kähler manifolds

This paper is concerned with the existence of constant scalar curvature Kähler metrics on blow-ups at finitely many points of compact manifolds which already carry constant scalar curvature Kähler metrics. We also consider the desingularization of isolated quotient singularities of compact orbifolds which carry constant scalar curvature Kähler metrics.     

Periodic Rotating Waves of a Geodesic Curvature Flow on the Sphere

Given a zone on the unit sphere S² with periodic undulating boundaries, we consider the motion of a curve in this zone which is driven by its geodesic curvature. First, we give a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of periodic rotating waves. Then we study how the average rotating speed of the periodic rotating wave depends on the geometry of the boundaries. We find that when the period of the boundaries tends to 0, the homogenization limit of the rotating speed depends only on the maximum slope of the domain boundaries.