Discs area-minimizing in mean convex Riemannian n-manifolds

In this work, we consider oriented compact manifolds which possess convex mean curvature boundary, positive scalar curvature and admit a map to $\mathbb {D}^{2}\times T^{n}$ with non-zero degree, where $\mathbb {D}^{2}$ is a disc and $T^{n}$ is an $n$ -dimensional torus. We prove the validity of an inequality involving a mean of the area and the length of the boundary of immersed discs whose boundaries are homotopically non-trivial curves. We also prove a rigidity result for the equality case when the boundary is strongly totally geodesic. This can be viewed as a partial generalization of a result due to Lucas Ambrózio in (2015, J. Geom. Anal., 25, 1001–1017) to higher dimensions.

Self-Expanders of the Mean Curvature Flow

We study self-expanding solutions $M^{m}\subset \mathbb {R}^{n}$ M m ⊂ ℝ n of the mean curvature flow. One of our main results is, that complete mean convex self-expanding hypersurfaces are products of self-expanding curves and flat subspaces, if and only if the function |A|2/|H|2 attains a local maximum, where A denotes the second fundamental form and H the mean curvature vector of M. If the principal normal ξ = H/|H| is parallel in the normal bundle, then a similar result holds in higher codimension for the function |Aξ|2/|H|2, where Aξ is the second fundamental form with respect to ξ. As a corollary we obtain that complete mean convex self-expanders attain strictly positive scalar curvature, if they are smoothly asymptotic to cones of non-negative scalar curvature. In particular, in dimension 2 any mean convex self-expander that is asymptotic to a cone must be strictly convex.

Simply connected translating solitons contained in slabs

In this work we show that 2-dimensional, simply connected, translating solitons of the mean curvature flow embedded in a slab of ℝ3 with entropy strictly less than 3 must be mean convex and thus, thanks to a result by Spruck and Xiao are convex. Recently, such 2-dimensional convex translating solitons have been completely classified, up to an ambient isometry, as vertical planes, (tilted) grim reaper cylinders, Δ-wings and bowl translater. These are all contained in a slab, except for the rotationally symmetric bowl translater. New examples by Ho man, Martín and White show that the bound on the entropy is necessary.

Inscribed Radius Bounds for Lower Ricci Bounded Metric Measure Spaces with Mean Convex Boundary

Consider an essentially nonbranching metric measure space with the measure contraction property of Ohta and Sturm, or with a Ricci curvature lower bound in the sense of Lott, Sturm and Villani. We prove a sharp upper bound on the inscribed radius of any subset whose boundary has a suitably signed lower bound on its generalized mean curvature. This provides a nonsmooth analog to a result of Kasue (1983) and Li (2014). We prove a stability statement concerning such bounds and - in the Riemannian curvature-dimension (RCD) setting - characterize the cases of equality.

Capacity, quasi-local mass, and singular fill-ins

We derive new inequalities between the boundary capacity of an asymptotically flat 3-manifold with nonnegative scalar curvature and boundary quantities that relate to quasi-local mass; one relates to Brown–York mass and the other is new. We argue by recasting the setup to the study of mean-convex fill-ins with nonnegative scalar curvature and, in the process, we consider fill-ins with singular metrics, which may have independent interest. Among other things, our work yields new variational characterizations of Riemannian Schwarzschild manifolds and new comparison results for surfaces in them.

Min–max theory for free boundary minimal hypersurfaces II: general Morse index bounds and applications

For any smooth Riemannian metric on an $$(n+1)$$ ( n + 1 ) -dimensional compact manifold with boundary $$(M,\partial M)$$ ( M , ∂ M ) where $$3\le (n+1)\le 7$$ 3 ≤ ( n + 1 ) ≤ 7 , we establish general upper bounds for the Morse index of free boundary minimal hypersurfaces produced by min–max theory in the Almgren–Pitts setting. We apply our Morse index estimates to prove that for almost every (in the $$C^\infty $$ C ∞ Baire sense) Riemannan metric, the union of all compact, properly embedded free boundary minimal hypersurfaces is dense in M. If $$\partial M$$ ∂ M is further assumed to have a strictly mean convex point, we show the existence of infinitely many compact, properly embedded free boundary minimal hypersurfaces whose boundaries are non-empty. Our results prove a conjecture of Yau for generic metrics in the free boundary setting.