Related papers: An enumerative min-max theorem for minimal surface…

We establish a general min-max type theorem that produces minimal surfaces with prescribed genus in 3-manifolds with positive Ricci curvature. An important intermediate step is to show that, in a generic metric with positive Ricci…

We describe some topological structure in the set of all surfaces with finitely many singularities in the 3-sphere. As an application, we prove that every Riemannian 3-sphere of positive Ricci curvature contains, for every g, a genus g…

Given a Riemannian $\mathbb{RP}^3$ with a bumpy metric or a metric of positive Ricci curvature, we show that there either exist four distinct minimal real projective planes, or exist one minimal real projective plane together with two…

In this paper, we prove the strong Morse inequalities for the area functional in the space of embedded tori and spheres in the three sphere. As a consequence, we prove that in the three dimensional sphere with positive Ricci curvature,…

A Ricci surface is a Riemannian 2-manifold $(M,g)$ whose Gaussian curvature $K$ satisfies $K\Delta K+g(dK,dK)+4K^3=0$. Every minimal surface isometrically embedded in $\mathbb{R}^3$ is a Ricci surface of non-positive curvature. At the end…

In the early 1980s, S. T. Yau conjectured that any compact Riemannian three-manifold admits an infinite number of closed immersed minimal surfaces. We use min-max theory for the area functional to prove this conjecture in the positive Ricci…

In this paper we consider min-max minimal surfaces in three-manifolds and prove some rigidity results. For instance, we prove that any metric on a 3-sphere which has scalar curvature greater than or equal to 6 and is not round must have an…

We show that in a closed 3-manifold with a generic metric of positive Ricci curvature, there are minimal surfaces of arbitrary large Morse index, which partially confirms a conjecture by F. Marques and A. Neves. We prove this by analyzing…

We prove that given a three manifold with an arbitrary metric $(M^3, g)$ of positive Ricci curvature, there exists a sweepout of $M$ by surfaces of genus $\leq 3$ and areas bounded by $C vol(M^3, g)^{2/3}$. We use this result to construct a…

E. Calabi and J. Cao showed that a closed geodesic of least length in a two-sphere with nonnegative curvature is always simple. Using min-max theory, we prove that for some higher dimensions, this result holds without assumptions on the…

Using an analogue of Myers' theorem for minimal surfaces and three dimensional topology, we prove the diameter sphere theorem for Ricci curvature in dimension three and a corresponding eigenvalue pinching theorem. This settles these two…

In this paper, we consider a connected orientable closed Riemannian manifold $M^{n+1}$ with positive Ricci curvature. Suppose $G$ is a compact Lie group acting by isometries on $M$ with $3\leq {\rm codim}(G\cdot p)\leq 7$ for all $p\in M$.…

In 1989, B. White conjectured that every Riemannian 3-sphere has at least 5 embedded minimal tori. We confirm this conjecture for 3-spheres of positive Ricci curvature. While our proof uses min-max theory, the underlying heuristics are…

Let $(M^{n+1},g)$ be a closed Riemannian manifold of dimension $3\le n+1\le 5$. We show that, if the metric $g$ is generic or if the metric $g$ has positive Ricci curvature, then $M$ contains infinitely many geometrically distinct constant…

Let M be a 3-manifold (possibly with boundary). We show that, for any positive integer g, there exists an open nonempty set of metrics on M for each of which there are stable compact embedded minimal surfaces of genus g with arbitrarily…

In this paper, we build up a min-max theory for minimal surfaces using sweepouts of surfaces of genus $g\geq 2$. We develop a direct variational methods similar to the proof of the famous Plateau problem by J. Douglas and T. Rado. As a…

We develop a min-max theory for the construction of capillary surfaces in 3-manifolds with smooth boundary. In particular, for a generic set of ambient metrics, we prove the existence of nontrivial, smooth, almost properly embedded surfaces…

We show that a 3-manifold containing an incompressible surface has topologically minimal surfaces of arbitrary high genus.

In this paper we prove genus bounds for closed embedded minimal surfaces in a closed 3-dimensional manifold constructed via min-max arguments. A stronger estimate was announced by Pitts and Rubistein but to our knowledge its proof has never…

In this paper, we develop a general existence theory for properly embedded minimal surfaces with free boundary in any compact Riemannian 3-manifold $M$ with boundary $\partial M$. The main feature of our result is that no convexity…