Related papers: Incompressibility and Least-Area surfaces

If M is a manifold with compressible boundary, we analyze essential disks in M, as well as incompressible, but not necessarily boundary incompressible, surfaces in M. We are most interested in the case where M is a handlebody or compression…

A compact metric surface $M$ isometrically fills a closed metric curve $C$ if $\partial M=C$ and $d_M(x,y)=d_C(x,y)$ for every $x,y\in C=\partial M$; that is, $M$ does not introduce any ``shortcuts'' between points on its boundary. Gromov's…

In (the surface of) a convex polytope P^3 in R^4, an area-minimizing surface avoids the vertices of P and crosses the edges orthogonally. In a smooth Riemannian manifold M with a group of isometries G, an area-minimizing G-invariant…

We consider minimal maps $f:M\to N$ between Riemannian manifolds $(M,\mathrm{g}_M)$ and $(N,\mathrm{g}_N)$, where $M$ is compact and where the sectional curvatures satisfy $\sec_N\le \sigma\le \sec_M$ for some $\sigma>0$. Under certain…

In this article we extend several foundational results of the theory of complete minimal surfaces of finite index in the Euclidean space to minimal surfaces in asymptotically flat manifolds and, more generally, to marginally outer-trapped…

Let $M$ be an open Riemann surface and $n\ge 3$ be an integer. In this paper we establish some generic properties (in Baire category sense) in the space of all conformal minimal immersions $M\to\mathbb{R}^n$ endowed with the compact-open…

For a compact 3-manifold $M$ which is a circle bundle over a compact Riemann surface $\Sigma$ with even Euler number $e(M)$, and with a Riemannian metric compatible with the bundle projection, there exists a compact minimal surface $S$ in…

A sequence of distinct closed surfaces in a hyperbolic 3-manifold M is asymptotically geodesic if their principal curvatures tend uniformly to zero. When M has finite volume, we show such sequences are always asymptotically dense in the…

We study trapped surfaces from the point of view of local isometric embedding into three-dimensional Riemannian manifolds. When a two-surface is embedded into three-dimensional Euclidean space, the problem of finding all surfaces applicable…

We construct sequences of `expander manifolds' and we use them to show that there is a complete connected 2-dimensional Riemannian manifold with discontinuous isoperimetric profile, answering a question of Nardulli and Pansu. Using expander…

Let M be an irreducible Riemannian symmetric space. The index i(M) of M is the minimal codimension of a totally geodesic submanifold of M. In previous work the authors proved that i(M) is bounded from below by the rank rk(M) of M. In this…

We study invariant metrics on Ledger-Obata spaces $F^m/\mathrm{diag}(F)$. We give the classification and an explicit construction of all naturally reductive metrics, and also show that in the case $m=3$, any invariant metric is naturally…

Let $f\in W^{3,1}_{\mathrm{loc}}(\Omega)$ be a function defined on a connected open subset $\Omega\subseteq\mathbb R^2$. We will show that its graph is contained in a quadratic surface if and only if $f$ is a weak solution to a certain…

In this paper we state and prove a higher index theorem for an odd-dimensional connected spin riemannian manifold $(M,g)$ which is partitioned by an oriented closed hypersurface $N$. This index theorem generalizes a theorem due to N. Higson…

This paper contains a purely topological theorem and a geometric application. The topological theorem states that if M is a simple closed orientable 3-manifold such that \pi_1(M) contains a genus g surface group and H_1(M;Z/2Z) has rank at…

The central idea of the proof is to show that a minimal flow v on a compact 3-manifold M implies the existence of a codimension one foliation F on it, which is transverse to the flow. If M is the 3-sphere, Novikov's theorem applies to show…

Given a smooth map $f:M\rightarrow N$ of closed oriented smooth manifolds, is there an immersion homotopic to $f$? We provide an algorithm that decides this when the codimension of the manifolds is odd.

We classify all closed, aspherical Riemannian manifolds M whose universal cover has indiscrete isometry group. One sample application is the theorem that any such M with word-hyperbolic fundamental group must be isometric to a negatively…

In this paper, by putting a separating incompressible surface in a 3-manifold into Morse position relative to the height function associated to a strongly irreducible Heegaard splitting, we show that an incompressible subsurface of the…

Let $(M^n,g)$, $n \ge 4$, be a compact simply-connected Riemannian manifold with nonnegative isotropic curvature. Given $0<l\le L$, we prove that there exists $\eps = \eps (l,L,n)$ satisfying the following: If the scalar curvature $s$ of…