On the volume functional of compact manifolds with harmonic Weyl tensor

The main aim of this article is to give the complete classification of critical metrics of the volume functional on a compact manifold M with boundary $\partial M$ and under the harmonic Weyl tensor condition. In particular, we prove that a critical metric with a harmonic Weyl tensor on a simply connected compact manifold with the boundary isometric to a standard sphere ${\mathbb{S}}^{n-1}$ must be isometric to a geodesic ball in a simply connected space form ${\mathbb{R}}^n$, ${\mathbb{H}}^n$, and ${\mathbb{S}}^n$. To this end, we first conclude the classification of such critical metrics under the Bach-flat assumption and then we prove that both geometric conditions are equivalent in this situation.     

Higher dimensional Shimura varieties in the Prym loci of ramified double covers

In this paper, we construct Shimura subvarieties of dimension bigger than one of the moduli space ${\mathsf{A}}_p^{\delta }$ of δ-polarized abelian varieties of dimension p, which are generically contained in the Prym loci of (ramified) double covers. The idea is to adapt the techniques already used to construct Shimura curves in the Prym loci to the higher dimensional case, namely, to use families of Galois covers of ${\mathbb{P}}^1$. The case of abelian covers is treated in detail, since in this case, it is possible to make explicit computations that allow to verify a sufficient condition for such a family to yield a Shimura subvariety of ${\mathsf{A}}_p^{\delta }$.     

Elliptic Weingarten hypersurfaces of Riemannian products

Let $M^n$ be either a simply connected space form or a rank-one symmetric space of the noncompact type. We consider Weingarten hypersurfaces of $M\times \mathbb{R}$, which are those whose principal curvatures $k_1,\cdots ,k_n$ and angle function $𝛩$ satisfy a relation $W(k_1,\cdots ,k_n,{𝛩}^2)=0$, being W a differentiable function which is symmetric with respect to $k_1,\cdots ,k_n$. When $\partial W/\partial k_i>0$ on the positive cone of ${\mathbb{R}}^n$, a strictly convex Weingarten hypersurface determined by W is said to be elliptic. We show that, for a certain class of Weingarten functions W, there exist rotational strictly convex Weingarten hypersurfaces of $M\times \mathbb{R}$ which are either topological spheres or entire graphs over M. We establish a Jellett–Liebmann-type theorem by showing that a compact, connected and elliptic Weingarten hypersurface of either ${\mathbb{S}}^n\times \mathbb{R}$ or ${\mathbb{H}}^n\times \mathbb{R}$ is a rotational embedded sphere. Other uniqueness results for complete elliptic Weingarten hypersurfaces of these ambient spaces are obtained. We also obtain existence results for constant scalar curvature hypersurfaces of ${\mathbb{S}}^n\times \mathbb{R}$ and ${\mathbb{H}}^n\times \mathbb{R}$ which are either rotational or invariant by translations (parabolic or hyperbolic). We apply our methods to give new proofs of the main results by Manfio and Tojeiro on the classification of constant sectional curvature hypersurfaces of ${\mathbb{S}}^n\times \mathbb{R}$ and ${\mathbb{H}}^n\times \mathbb{R}$.     

Vanishing of higher order Alexander-type invariants of plane curves

The higher order degrees are Alexander-type invariants of complements to an affine plane curve. In this paper, we characterize the vanishing of such invariants for a curve C given as a transversal union of plane curves $C^{\prime }$ and $C^{\prime \prime }$ in terms of the finiteness and the vanishing properties of the invariants of $C^{\prime }$ and $C^{\prime \prime }$, and whether or not they are irreducible. As a consequence, we prove that the multivariable Alexander polynomial ${\mathrm{\Delta }}_C^{multi}$ is a power of $(t-1)$, and we characterize when ${\mathrm{\Delta }}_C^{multi}=1$ in terms of the defining equations of $C^{\prime }$ and $C^{\prime \prime }$. Our results impose obstructions on the class of groups that can be realized as fundamental groups of complements of a transversal union of curves.