arXiv research

The paper connects least area surfaces to quasi-normal surfaces in 3-manifolds.

Motivated by classical theorems on minimal surface theory in compact hyperbolic three-manifolds, we investigate the questions of existence and deformations for least area minimal surfaces in complete noncompact hyperbolic three-manifold of finite volume. We prove any closed immersed incompressible surface can be deform…

We show that if $F$ is a smooth, closed, orientable surface embedded in a closed, orientable 3-manifold $M$ such that for each Riemannian metric $g$ on $M$, $F$ is isotopic to a least-area surface $F(g)$, then $F$ is incompressible.

New bounds found for minimal surfaces in hyperbolic 3-manifolds.

Upper bounds on area for surfaces with constant mean curvature in hyperbolic 3-manifolds.

For a family of spherical minimal catenoids C_a in the hyperbolic 3-space, there exist two constants 0<a_c<a_l such that the following are true: (1) C_a is an unstable minimal surface with index one if a<a_c, (2) C_a is a stable minimal surface if a>=a_c, and (3) C_a is a least area minimal surface in the sense of Meek…

New results show area-minimizing surfaces have fewer singularities than expected.

Let $α$ be a polygonal Jordan curve in $\bfR^3$. We show that if $α$ satisfies certain conditions, then the least-area Douglas-Radó disk in $\bfR^3$ with boundary $α$ is unique and is a smooth graph. As our conditions on $α$ are not included amongst previously known conditions for embeddedness, we are enlarging the set…

Characterizes area-minimizing maps for surfaces of genus ≥ 2.

It is proved by Brendle in [4] that the equatorial disk $D^k$ has least area among $k$-dimensional free boundary minimal surfaces in the Euclidean ball $B^n$. By comparing the excess of free boundary minimal surfaces with the excess of the associated cones over the boundary, we prove the existence of a gap for the area…

Two fundamental objects in knot theory are the minimal genus surface and the least area surface bounded by a knot in a 3-dimensional manifold. When the knot is embedded in a general 3-manifold, the problems of finding these surfaces were shown to be NP-complete and NP-hard respectively. However, there is evidence that …

The classical isoperimetric inequality in R^3 states that the surface of smallest area enclosing a given volume is a sphere. We show that the least area surface enclosing two equal volumes is a double bubble, a surface made of two pieces of round spheres separated by a flat disk, meeting along a single circle at an ang…

The area of a convex projective surface of genus $g\ge 2$ is at least $(g-1)π^2/2+\|τ\|^2/8$ where $τ=(\log t_i)$ is the vector of triangle invariants of Bonahon-Dreyer and $t_i$ are the Fock-Goncharov triangle coordinates.

Study of large area-constrained Willmore surfaces in Schwarzschild-like manifolds.

Sharp inequalities for curved surfaces and cones.

Flat surfaces that correspond to $k$-differentials on compact Riemann surfaces are of finite area provided there is no pole of order $k$ or higher. We denote by \textit{flat surfaces with poles of higher order} those surfaces with flat structures defined by a $k$-differential with at least one pole of order at least $k…

In this paper, we prove uniform lower bounds on the volume growth of balls in the universal covers of Riemannian surfaces and graphs. More precisely, there exists a constant $δ>0$ such that if $(M,hyp)$ is a closed hyperbolic surface and $h$ another metric on $M$ with $\area(M,h)\leq δ\area(M,hyp)$ then for every radiu…

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 curvature. More precisely, in a closed $(n+1)$-manifold with $2 \leq n \leq 6$, a l…

We give sharp upper bounds on the maximal injectivity radius of finite-area hyperbolic surfaces and use them, for each g at least 2, to identify a constant r_{g-1,2} with the property that the set of closed genus-g hyperbolic surfaces with maximal injectivity radius at least r is compact if and only if r > r_{g-1,2}. T…

We study hyperbolic polyhedral surfaces with faces isometric to regular hyperbolic polygons satisfying that the total angles at vertices are at least $2π.$ The combinatorial information of these surfaces is shown to be identified with that of Euclidean polyhedral surfaces with negative combinatorial curvature everywher…

The closed string field theory minimal-area problem asks for the conformal metric of least area on a Riemann surface with the condition that all non-contractible closed curves have length at least 2π. Through every point in such a metric there is a geodesic that saturates the length condition, and saturating geodesics …

This paper embeds surfaces in 3D spheres and balls with minimal area.

We show that for any extreme curve in a 3-manifold M, there exist a canonical mean convex hull containing all least area disks spanning the curve. Similar result is true for asymptotic case in hyperbolic 3-space such that for any asymptotic curve, there is a canonical mean convex hull containing all minimal planes span…

The paper develops a theory for free boundary minimal surfaces with genus at least one.

Making use of the extended flux homomorphism on the group of symplectomorphisms of a closed oriented surface of genus at least 2, we introduce new characteristic classes of foliated surface bundles with symplectic, equivalently area-preserving, total holonomy. These characteristic classes are stable with respect to the…

In this paper, we study closed embedded minimal hypersurfaces in a Riemannian $(n+1)$-manifold ($2\le n\le 6$) that minimize area among such hypersurfaces. We show they exist and arise either by minimization techniques or by min-max methods: they have index at most $1$. We apply this to obtain a lower area bound for su…

The closed string field theory minimal-area problem asks for the conformal metric of least area on a Riemann surface with the condition that all non-contractible closed curves have length at least 2π. This is an extremal length problem in conformal geometry as well as a problem in systolic geometry. We consider the ana…

We prove that if $(M,g)$ is a topological 3-ball with a $C^4$-smooth Riemannian metric $g$, and mean-convex boundary $\partial M$ then knowledge of least areas circumscribed by simple closed curves $γ\subset \partial M$ uniquely determines the metric $g$, under some additional geometric assumptions. These are that $g$ …

We prove there exists a compact embedded minimal surface in a complete finite volume hyperbolic $3$-manifold $\mathcal{N}$. We also obtain a least area, incompressible, properly embedded, finite topology, $2$-sided surface. We prove a properly embedded minimal surface of bounded curvature has finite topology. This dete…

We develop a bubble tree construction and prove compactness results for $W^{2,2}$ branched conformal immersions of closed Riemann surfaces, with varying conformal structures whose limit may degenerate, in a compact Riemannian manifold with uniformly bounded areas and Willmore energies. The compactness property is appli…

The paper proves prevalent existence and partially determines moduli space of area-minimizing surfaces with fractal singular sets.

In this paper we show that every degree 2 homology class of a 2n-dimensional symplectic manifold is represented by an immersed symplectic surface if it has positive symplectic area. Moreover, the symplectic surface can be chosen to be embedded if 2n is at least 6. We also analyze the additional conditions under which e…

We obtain a Chern-Osserman type equality of a complete properly immersed surface in Euclidean space, provided the L^2-norm of the second fundamental form is finite. Also, by using a monotonicity formula, we prove that if the L^2-norm of mean curvature of a noncompact surface is finite, then it has at least quadratic ar…

This paper tackles Gromov's filling area conjecture using discrete graph theory.

We prove that the area of a free boundary minimal surface $Σ^2 \subset B^n$, where $B^n$ is a geodesic ball contained in a round hemisphere $\mathbb{S}^n_+$, is at least as big as that of a geodesic disk with the same radius as $B^n$; equality is attained only if $Σ$ coincides with such a disk. More generally, we prove…

In this paper we prove new upper bounds for the length of a shortest closed geodesic, denoted $l(M)$, on a complete, non-compact Riemannian surface $M$ of finite area $A$. We will show that $l(M) \leq 4\sqrt{2A}$ on a manifold with one end, thus improving the prior estimate of C. B. Croke, who first established that $l…

For two disjoint rectifiable star-shaped Jordan curves (including round circles) in the asymptotic boundary of hyperbolic 3-space, if the distance (see Definition 1.8) between these two Jordan curves are bounded from above by some constant, then there exists an annulus-type area minimizing (or equivalently least area) …

We show that if P is an embedded least area (area minimizing) plane in hyperbolic 3-space whose asymptotic boundary is a simple closed curve with at least one smooth point, then P is properly embedded.

Following earlier work of Loftin-McIntosh, we study minimal Lagrangian immersions of the universal cover of a closed surface (of genus at least 2) into CH2, with prescribed data of a conformal structure plus a holomorphic cubic differential. We show existence and non-uniqueness of such minimal Lagrangian immersions. We…

We survey - by means of 20 examples - the concept of varifold, as generalised submanifold, with emphasis on regularity of integral varifolds with mean curvature, while keeping prerequisites to a minimum. Integral varifolds are the natural language for studying the variational theory of the area integrand if one conside…

We characterize the standard $\mathbb{S}^3$ as the closed Ricci-positive 3-manifold with scalar curvature at least 6 having isoperimetric surfaces of largest area: $4π$. As a corollary we answer in the affirmative an interesting special case of a conjecture of Min-Oo's on the scalar curvature rigidity of the upper hemi…

The study proves surfaces with high genus have a specific inequality.

We prove that the least-perimeter partition of the sphere into four regions of equal area is a tetrahedral partition.

P. Papasoglu asked in [Pap13] whether for any Riemannian 3-disk $M$ with diameter $d$, boundary area $A$ and volume $V$, there exists a homotopy $S_t$ contracting the boundary to a point so that the area of $S_t$ is bounded by $f(d,A,V)$ for some function $f$. He further asks whether it is possible to subdivide $M$ by …

Solves a problem posed by Brezis and Mironescu about least mass of area-minimizing currents.

We show that the Cheeger constant of compact surfaces is bounded by a function of the area. We apply this to isoperimetric profiles of bounded genus non-compact surfaces, to show that if their isoperimetric profile grows faster than $\sqrt t$, then it grows at least as fast as a linear function. This generalizes a resu…

The paper proposes a new way to approximate Riemannian metrics using discrete wall systems.

In this paper, we prove the existence of the free boundary minimal hypersurface of least area in compact manifolds with boundary. Such hypersurface can be viewed as the ground state of the volume spectrum introduced by Gromov. Moreover, we characterize the orientation and Morse index of them.