Bernstein type theorems for the Willmore surface equation

Speaker: 

Jingyi Chen

Institution: 

University of British Columbia

Time: 

Tuesday, March 1, 2016 - 4:00pm to 5:00pm

Host: 

Location: 

RH 306

A Willmore surface in the 3-dimensional Euclidean space is a critical point of the
square norm of the mean curvature of the surface.
The round spheres, the Clifford torus and the minimal surfaces are Willmore. For a
graph to satisfy the Willmore surface equation, its defining function is governed by
a fourth order non-linear elliptic equation. A classical theorem of Bernstein says
that an entire minimal graph must be a plane. We ask what happens to the entire
Willmore graphs. In this talk, I will discuss joint work with Tobias Lamm on the
finite energy case and with Yuxiang Li on the radially symmetric case.

A local regularity theorem for mean curvature flow with triple edges

Speaker: 

Felix Schulze

Institution: 

UCL

Time: 

Tuesday, March 29, 2016 - 4:00pm to 5:00pm

Host: 

Location: 

RH306

We consider the evolution by mean curvature flow of surface clusters,
where along triple edges three surfaces are allowed to meet under an equal angle
condition. We show that any such smooth flow, which is weakly close to the static
flow consisting of three half-planes meeting along the common boundary, is smoothly
close with estimates. Furthermore, we show how this can be used to prove a smooth
short-time existence result. This is joint work with B. White.

Large time behavior of the weak Calabi flow

Speaker: 

Tamas Darvas

Institution: 

University of Maryland

Time: 

Tuesday, February 23, 2016 - 4:00pm

Host: 

Location: 

RH 306

Given a  Kahler manifold, the smooth Calabi flow is the parabolic version of the constant scalar curvature equation. Given that this fourth order flow has a very undeveloped regularity and existence theory, J. Streets recast it as a weak gradient flow in the abstract completion of the space of Kahler metrics. In this talk we will show how a better understanding of the abstract completion gives updated information on the large time behavior of the weak Calabi flow, and how this fits into a well known conjectural picture of Donaldson. This is joint work with Robert Berman and Chinh Lu. 

Area bounds for free boundary minimal surfaces in conformally Euclidean balls

Speaker: 

Peter McGrath

Institution: 

Brown University

Time: 

Tuesday, January 19, 2016 - 4:00pm

Location: 

RH 306

We prove that the volume of a free boundary minimal surface
\Sigma^k \subset B^n, where B^n is a geodesic ball in Hyperbolic
space H^n, is bounded from below by the volume of a geodesic k-ball
with the same radius as B^n. More generally, we prove analogous
results for the case where the ambient space is conformally
Euclidean, spherically symmetric, and the conformal factor is
nondecreasing in the radial variable. These results follow work
of Brendle and Fraser-Schoen, who proved analogous results for
surfaces in the unit ball in R^n. This is joint work with Brian Freidin.

Geometric variational theory and applications

Speaker: 

Xin Zhou

Institution: 

MIT

Time: 

Monday, November 23, 2015 - 4:00pm

Location: 

RH 340P

The Almgren-Pitts min-max theory is a Morse theoretical
type variational theory aiming at constructing unstable minimal
surfaces in a closed Riemannian manifold. In this talk, we will
survey recent progress along this direction. First, we will discuss
the understanding of the geometry of the classical Almgren-Pitts
min-max minimal surface with a focus on the Morse index problem.
Second, we will give an application of our results to quantitative
topology and metric geometry. Next, we will introduce the study of
the Morse indices for more general min-max minimal surfaces arising
from multi-parameter min-max constructions. Finally, we will
introduce a new min-max theory in the Gaussian probability space and
its application to the entropy conjecture in mean curvature flow.

Cobordisms and holomorphic curves

Speaker: 

Hiro Lee Tanaka

Institution: 

Harvard University

Time: 

Tuesday, December 1, 2015 - 4:00pm

Location: 

RH 306

Just as we study varieties by utilizing vector bundles over them, we
often study symplectic manifolds by utilizing holomorphic curves.
While holomorphic curves are by far the most useful tool in
symplectic geometry, the analytical details can often be a
bottleneck. In this talk, we'll talk about how the most computable
cases of holomorphic curve theory may conjecturally be recovered by
purely topological (i.e., non-analytical) means---namely, through the
algebraic structure inherent in cobordisms. As an example theorem, we
will show that if two exact closed Lagrangians submanifolds are
related by an exact Lagrangian cobordism, then their Floer theories
are identical in a very strong sense.

Quasi-local conserved quantities in general relativity

Speaker: 

Po-Ning Chen

Institution: 

Columbia University

Time: 

Tuesday, November 10, 2015 - 4:00pm

Location: 

RH 306

In this talk, we discuss how to define the quasi-local conserved
quantities, the mass, angular momentum and center of mass, for a
finitely extended region in a spacetime satisfying the Einstein
equation. We start with the quasi-local mass and its properties and
then use the results to define other conserved quantities. As a
further application, we use the limit of the quasi-local conserved
quantities to define total conserved quantities of asymptotically flat
spacetimes at both the spatial and the null infinity and study the
variation of these quantities under the Einstein equation.

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