On Finsler transnormal functions

In this note we discuss a few properties of transnormal Finsler functions, i.e., the natural generalization of distance functions and isoparametric Finsler functions. In particular, we prove that critical level sets of an analytic transnormal function are submanifolds, and the partition of M into level sets is a Finsler partition, when the function is defined on a compact analytic manifold M.     

Integrable Riemannian Submersion with Singularities

A map of a Riemannian manifold into an euclidian space is said to be transnormal if its restrictions to neighbourhoods of regular level sets are integrable Riemannian submersions. Analytic transnormal maps can be used to describe isoparametric submanifolds in spaces of constant curvature and equifocal submanifolds with flat sections in simply connected symmetric spaces. These submanifolds are also regular leaves of singular Riemannian foliations with sections. We prove that regular level sets of an analytic transnormal map on a real analytic complete Riemannian manifold are equifocal submanifolds and leaves of a singular Riemannian foliation with sections.     

On submanifolds whose tubular hypersurfaces have constant higher order mean curvatures

Motivated by the theory of isoparametric hypersurfaces,we study submanifolds whose tubular hypersurfaces have some constant higher order mean curvatures.Here a k-th order mean curvature Q_k~v(k ≥ 1) of a submanifold M~n-is defined as the k-th power sum of the principal curvatures,or equivalently,of the shape operator with respect to the unit normal vector v.We show that if all nearby tubular hypersurfaces of M have some constant higher order mean curvatures,then the submanifold M itself has some constant higher order mean curvatures Q_k~v independent of the choice of v.Many identities involving higher order mean curvatures and Jacobi operators on such submanifolds are also obtained.In particular,we generalize several classical results in isoparametric theory given by E.Cartan,K.Nomizu,H.F.Miinzner,Q.M.Wang,et al.As an application,we finally get a geometrical filtration for the focal submanifolds of isoparametric functions on a complete Riemannian manifold.     

The Oshima-Sekiguchi and Liouville theorems on Heintze groups

Let L be an elliptic operator on a Riemannian manifold M. A function F annihilated by L is said to be L-harmonic. F is said to have moderate growth if and only if F grows at most exponentially in the Riemannian distance. If M is a rank-one symmetric space and L is the Laplace-Beltrami operator for M, the Oshima-Sekiguchi theorem [T. Oshima, J. Sekiguchi, Eigenspaces of invariant differential operators on an affine symmetric space, Invent. Math. 57 (1980) 1-81] states that a L-harmonic function F has moderate growth if and only if F is the Poisson integral of a distribution on the Furstenberg boundary. In this work we prove that this result generalizes to a very large class of homogeneous Riemannian manifolds of negative curvature. We also (i) prove a Liouville type theorem that characterizes the “polynomial-like” harmonic functions which vanish on the boundary in terms of their growth properties, (ii) describe all “polynomial-like” harmonic functions, and (iii) give asymptotic expansions for the Poisson kernel. One consequence of this work is that every Schwartz distribution on the boundary is the boundary value for a L-harmonic function F which is uniquely determined modulo “polynomial-like” harmonic functions.     

H-contact unit tangent sphere bundles of Riemannian manifolds

A contact metric manifold is said to be H-contact, if its characteristic vector field is harmonic. We prove that the unit tangent bundle of a Riemannian manifold M equipped with the standard contact metric structure is H-contact if and only if M is 2-stein.     

CR-invariants and the scattering operator for complex manifolds with CR-boundary

Suppose that M is a CR manifold bounding a compact complex manifold X. The manifold X admits an approximate Kähler–Einstein metric g which makes the interior of X a complete Riemannian manifold. We identify certain residues of the scattering operator as CR-covariant differential operators and obtain the CR Q-curvature of M from the scattering operator as well. Our results are an analogue in CR-geometry of Graham and Zworski's result that certain residues of the scattering operator on a conformally compact manifold with a Poincaré–Einstein metric are natural, conformally covariant differential operators, and the Q-curvature of the conformal infinity can be recovered from the scattering operator. To cite this article: P.D. Hislop et al., C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Ser. I 342 (2006).     

A symmetry result for the p-Laplacian in a punctured manifold

Let M be a Riemannian manifold such that its geodesic spheres centered at a point a∈M are isoperimetric and the distance function dist(⋅,a) is isoparametric, and let Ω⊂M be a bounded domain. We prove that if there exists a lower bounded nonconstant function u which is p-harmonic (1<p?n) in the punctured domain Ω?{a} such that both u and are constant on ∂Ω, then u is radial and ∂Ω is a geodesic sphere. The proof hinges on a combination of maximum principles, isoparametricity and the isoperimetric inequality.     

Conformal and semi-conformal biharmonic maps

We show that a conformal mapping between Riemannian manifolds of the same dimension n ≥ 3 is biharmonic if and only if the gradient of its dilation satisfies a certain second-order elliptic partial differential equation. On an Einstein manifold solutions can be generated from isoparametric functions. We characterise those semi-conformal submersions that are biharmonic in terms of their dilation and the fibre mean curvature vector field.      

Polar foliations and isoparametric maps

A singular Riemannian foliation F{\mathcal{F}} on a complete Riemannian manifold M is called a polar foliation if, for each regular point p, there is an immersed submanifold Σ, called section, that passes through p and that meets all the leaves and always perpendicularly. A typical example of a polar foliation is the partition of M into the orbits of a polar action, i.e., an isometric action with sections. In this article we prove that the leaves of F{\mathcal{F}} coincide with the level sets of a smooth map H: M → Σ, if M is simply connected. In particular, the orbits of a polar action on a simply connected space are level sets of an isoparametric map. This result extends previous results due to the author and Gorodski, Heintze, Liu and Olmos, Carter and West, and Terng.     

Harmonic functions and volume growth of fingerless ends

Let M be a noncompact complete Riemannian manifold with finitely many ends. In this paper we study the existence of Green's function for the p-Laplace equation on M in terms of a certain volume growth. We also show that the dimension of the linear space of polynomial growth harmonic functions is finite if a volume comparison condition and a mean value inequality for nonnegative subharmonic functions hold in sufficiently large parts of each end. Received June 9, 1999 / Published online July 3, 2000     

Proximal Calculus on Riemannian Manifolds

We introduce a proximal subdifferential and develop a calculus for nonsmooth functions defined on any Riemannian manifold M. We give some applications of this theory, concerning, for instance, a Borwein-Preiss type variational principle on a Riemannian manifold M, as well as differentiability and geometrical properties of the distance function to a closed subset C of M. The first-named author was supported by a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship of the European Community, Human Resources and Mobility Programme under contract number MEIF CT2003-500927. The second-named author was supported by BFM2003-06420.     

The higher rank rigidity theorem for manifolds with no focal points

We say that a Riemannian manifold M has rank M ≥ k if every geodesic in M admits at least k parallel Jacobi fields. The Rank Rigidity Theorem of Ballmann and Burns–Spatzier, later generalized by Eberlein–Heber, states that a complete, irreducible, simply connected Riemannian manifold M of rank k ≥ 2 (the “higher rank” assumption) whose isometry group Γ satisfies the condition that the Γ-recurrent vectors are dense in SM is a symmetric space of noncompact type. This includes, for example, higher rank M which admit a finite volume quotient. We adapt the method of Ballmann and Eberlein–Heber to prove a generalization of this theorem where the manifold M is assumed only to have no focal points. We then use this theorem to generalize to no focal points a result of Ballmann–Eberlein stating that for compact manifolds of nonpositive curvature, rank is an invariant of the fundamental group.     

A characterization of Moebius isoparametric hypersurfaces of the sphere

We consider a proper, umbilic-free immersion of an n-dimensional manifold M in the sphere S ⁿ⁺¹. We show that M is a Moebius isoparametric hypersurface if, and only if, it is a cyclide of Dupin or a Dupin hypersurface with constant Moebius curvature.     

A note on the {\rho}-Nitsche conjecture

Let (M, g) be a complete, simply connected Riemannian manifold of dimension 3 without conjugate points. We show that if M is asymptotically harmonic of constant h = 0, then M is a flat manifold. This theorem shows that any asymptotically harmonic manifold in dimension 3 is a symmetric space, thus completing the classification of asymptotically harmonic manifolds in dimension 3.     

On Green functions of second-order elliptic operators on Riemannian manifolds: The critical case

Let P be a second-order, linear, elliptic operator with real coefficients which is defined on a noncompact and connected Riemannian manifold M. It is well known that the equation $Pu=0$ in M admits a positive supersolution which is not a solution if and only if P admits a unique positive minimal Green function on M, and in this case, P is said to be subcritical in M. If P does not admit a positive Green function but admits a global positive (super)solution, then such a solution is called a ground state of P in M, and P is said to be critical in M.We prove for a critical operator P in M, the existence of a Green function which is dominated above by the ground state of P away from the singularity. Moreover, in a certain class of Green functions, such a Green function is unique, up to an addition of a product of the ground states of P and $P^{?}$. Under some further assumptions, we describe the behavior at infinity of such a Green function. This result extends and sharpens the celebrated result of P. Li and L.-F. Tam concerning the existence of a symmetric Green function for the Laplace–Beltrami operator on a smooth and complete Riemannian manifold M.     

Two realizations of Schrödinger operators on Riemannian manifolds

We consider a Schrödinger differential expression P=ΔM+V on a complete Riemannian manifold (M,g) with metric g, where ΔM is the scalar Laplacian on M and V is a real-valued locally integrable function on M. We study two self-adjoint realizations of P in L²(M) and show their equality. This is an extension of a result of S. Agmon.     

Stable minimal hypersurfaces in a Riemannian manifold with pinched negative sectional curvature

We give an estimate of the smallest spectral value of the Laplace operator on a complete noncompact stable minimal hypersurface M in a complete simply connected Riemannian manifold with pinched negative sectional curvature. In the same ambient space, we prove that if a complete minimal hypersurface M has sufficiently small total scalar curvature then M has only one end. We also obtain a vanishing theorem for L ² harmonic 1-forms on minimal hypersurfaces in a Riemannian manifold with sectional curvature bounded below by a negative constant. Moreover, we provide sufficient conditions for a minimal hypersurface in a Riemannian manifold with nonpositive sectional curvature to be stable.     

Q-curvature flow on 4-manifolds with boundary

Given a compact four-dimensional smooth Riemannian manifold (M,g) with smooth boundary, we consider the evolution equation by Q-curvature in the interior keeping the T-curvature and the mean curvature to be zero. Using integral methods, we prove global existence and convergence for the Q-curvature flow to a smooth metric conformal to g of prescribed Q-curvature, zero T-curvature and vanishing mean curvature under conformally invariant assumptions.     

Dirichlet spectrum and heat content

Let M be a complete Riemannian manifold and D⊂M a smoothly bounded domain with compact closure. We use Brownian motion to study the relationship between the Dirichlet spectrum of D and the heat content asymptotics of D. Central to our investigation is a sequence of invariants associated to D defined using exit time moments. We prove that our invariants determine that part of the spectrum corresponding to eigenspaces which are not orthogonal to constant functions, that our invariants determine the heat content asymptotics associated to the manifold, and that when the manifold is a generic domain in Euclidean space, the invariants determine the Dirichlet spectrum.     

Levi Harmonic Maps of Contact Riemannian Manifolds

We study Levi harmonic maps, i.e., C ^∞ solutions f:M→M′ to \(\tau_{\mathcal{H}} (f) \equiv \operatorname{trace}_{g} ( \varPi_{\mathcal{H}}\beta_{f} ) = 0\) , where (M,η,g) is an (almost) contact (semi) Riemannian manifold, M′ is a (semi) Riemannian manifold, β _f is the second fundamental form of f, and \(\varPi_{\mathcal{H}} \beta_{f}\) is the restriction of β _f to the Levi distribution \({\mathcal{H}} = \operatorname{Ker}(\eta)\) . Many examples are exhibited, e.g., the Hopf vector field on the unit sphere S ²ⁿ⁺¹, immersions of Brieskorn spheres, and the geodesic flow of the tangent sphere bundle over a Riemannian manifold of constant curvature 1 are Levi harmonic maps. A CR map f of contact (semi) Riemannian manifolds (with spacelike Reeb fields) is pseudoharmonic if and only if f is Levi harmonic. We give a variational interpretation of Levi harmonicity. Any Levi harmonic morphism is shown to be a Levi harmonic map.