# Seminars & Events for Differential Geometry & Geometric Analysis Seminar

September 13, 2013
3:00pm - 4:00pm
##### There are finitely many surgeries in Perelman's Ricci flow
###### Differential Geometry & Geometric Analysis Seminar

Although the Ricci flow with surgery has been used by Perelman to solve the Poincaré and Geometrization Conjectures, some of its basic properties are still unknown. For example it has been an open question whether the surgeries eventually stop to occur (i.e. whether there are finitely many surgeries) and whether the full geometric decomposition of the underlying manifold is exhibited by the flow as $t \to \infty$.  In this talk I will show that the number of surgeries is indeed finite and that the curvature is globally bounded by $C t^{-1}$ for large $t$.

Speaker: Richard Bamler, Stanford University
Location:
Fine Hall 314
September 20, 2013
3:00pm - 4:00pm
##### Optimal transport and regularity of c-convex potentials
###### Differential Geometry & Geometric Analysis Seminar

The question of regularity in optimal transport and related equations of Monge Ampere type has seen a lot of activity in the past few decades. Starting from the usual quadratic cost in R^n and now ranging
arbitrary costs in Riemannian manifolds (and the related reflector antenna problems).  In this talk, we will give an impressionistic description of Caffarelli's regularity theory for the Monge Ampere equation in
Euclidean space, which strongly uses the affine invariance of the equation. We will see when and how such a theory can be pushed to general costs,. The new observation is  that in general regularity
arises not so much from affine invariance, but rather from two opposite inequalities for the Mahler volume of c-convex sets  (a kind of generalized Blaschke-Santaló inequalities).  The validity of such

Speaker: Nestor Guillen, University of California, Los Angeles
Location:
Fine Hall 314
September 27, 2013
3:00pm - 4:00pm
##### PDEs of Monge-Ampere type
###### Differential Geometry & Geometric Analysis Seminar

A considerable amount of research activity in recent years has been devoted to the study of nonlinear partial differential equations of Monge-Ampere type (MATEs) in connection with their applications to conformal geometry, optimal transportation and geometric optics. In this talk we will discuss the underlying structural condition found by Ma, Wang and myself and present a selection of recent results motivated by
the applications.

Speaker: Neil Trudinger, Australian National University
Location:
Fine Hall 314
September 27, 2013
4:15pm - 5:15pm
##### Witten spinors on nonspin manifolds
###### Differential Geometry & Geometric Analysis Seminar

Unlike a 3-dimensional manifold, a higher dimensional manifold need not be spin. On an oriented Riemannian manifold the obstruction to having a spin structure is given by the second Stiefel-Whitney class. I will show that even when this obstruction does not vanish, it is still possible to define a notion of singular spin structure and associated singular Dirac operator. Then, modeling on Witten's proof of the Positive Mass Theorem, I will define the notion of Witten spinor on an asymptotically flat nonspin manifold, show their existence and describe their properties.

Speaker: Anda Degeratu, Albert-Ludwig Universitaet Feiburg
Location:
Fine Hall 314
October 4, 2013
3:00pm - 4:00pm
##### Critical metrics on connected sums of Einstein four-manifolds
###### Differential Geometry & Geometric Analysis Seminar

THIS IS A JOINT SEMINAR WITH DIFFERENTIAL GEOMETRY & GEOMETRIC ANALYSIS and JOINT PRINCETON-RUTGERS GEOMETRIC PDEs.  PLEASE NOTE DIFFERENT LOCATION.   I will discuss a gluing procedure designed to obtain canonical metrics on connected sums of Einstein four-manifolds. The main application is an existence result, using two well-known Einstein manifolds as building blocks: the Fubini-Study metric on CP^2, and the product metric on S^2 x S^2. Using these metrics in various gluing configurations, critical metrics are found on connected sums for a specific Riemannian functional, which depends on the global geometry of the factors. This is joint work with Matt Gursky.

Speaker: Jeff Viaclovsky, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Location:
Fine Hall 110
October 4, 2013
4:15pm - 5:15pm
##### Yamabe flow, its singularity profiles and ancient solutions
###### Differential Geometry & Geometric Analysis Seminar

THIS IS A JOINT SEMINAR WITH DIFFERENTIAL GEOMETRY & GEOMETRIC ANALYSIS and JOINT PRINCETON-RUTGERS GEOMETRIC PDEs.  PLESE NOTE DIFFERENT LOCATION AND TIME.   We will discuss conformally flat complete Yamabe flow and show that in some cases we can give the precise description of singularity profiles close to the extinction time of the solution. We will also talk about a construction
of new compact ancient solutions to the Yamabe flow. This is a joint work with Daskalopoulos, King and Manuel del Pino.

Speaker: Natasa Sesum , Rutgers University
Location:
Fine Hall 110
October 9, 2013
3:00pm - 4:00pm
##### Ricci flow on quasiprojective manifolds
###### Differential Geometry & Geometric Analysis Seminar

PLEASE NOTE SPECIAL DAY (WEDNESDAY).  The talk is about Ricci flow on noncompact Kaehler manifolds.  I'll discuss four types of spatial asymptotics: cuspidal, cylindrical, bulging and conical.  The results are about the preservation of the asymptotics, long-time existence, parabolic blowdown limits and the role of the Kaehler-Ricci flow on the divisor.  This is joint work with Zhou Zhang

Speaker: John Lott, University of California, Berkeley
Location:
Fine Hall 314
October 18, 2013
3:00pm - 4:00pm
##### Isotropic curvature, macroscopic dimension Filling radius of contractible loops and fundamental group
###### Differential Geometry & Geometric Analysis Seminar

I will discuss the proof of a conjecture of Gromov's to the effect that manifolds with uniformly positive isotropic curvature (and bounded geometry) are macroscopically 1-dimensional on the scale of the isotropic curvature. One of the main techniques involved is modeled on Donaldson's version of H\"ormander technique to produce (almost) holomorphic sections. We use this to produce  sections of the restriction of the complexified tangent bundle of M to a stable embedded minimal disk which destabilize the disk if the distance grows too much. As a consequence we prove that compact manifolds with positive isotropic
curvature have virtually free fundamental groups.

Speaker: Gabriele La Nave, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Location:
Fine Hall 314
October 18, 2013
4:15pm - 5:15pm
##### Geometric view of conformal PDEs
###### Differential Geometry & Geometric Analysis Seminar

THIS SEMINAR HAS BEEN MOVED FROM OCTOBER 25 TO OCTOBER 18. PLEASE NOTE SPECIAL TIME.   In this talk we develop a global correspondence between immersed horospherically convex hypersurfaces $\phi: {\rm M}^n\to H^{n+1}$ and complete conformal metrics $e^{2\rho}g_{S^n}$ on domains $\Omega$ in the boundary $S^n$ at infinity of $H^{n+1}$ such that $\rho$ is the horospherical support function and that $\partial_\infty\phi({\rm M}^n) = \partial\Omega$.   For instance, we are able to obtain an explicit correspondence between Obata's Theorem (for conformal metrics) and Alexandrov Theorem (for hypersurfaces). It time permits, we obtain Bernstein and Delaunay theorems for a properly immersed, horospherically convex hypersurface in $H^{n+1}$.

Speaker: Jose Espinar , IMPA, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Location:
Fine Hall 314
October 25, 2013
3:00pm - 4:00pm
##### Singular perturbation of minimal surfaces
###### Differential Geometry & Geometric Analysis Seminar

(w/ N. Kapouleas and N.M. M\o ller) I discuss recent work in which we use singular perturbation techniques  to show that the space of complete embedded minimal surfaces with four ends and genus $k$ ($\mathcal{M}(k,4)$) is non-empty and non-compact for large $k$.

Speaker: Stephen Kleene, MIT
Location:
Fine Hall 314
November 8, 2013
3:00pm - 4:00pm
##### Mean curvature flow of mean convex hypersurfaces
###### Differential Geometry & Geometric Analysis Seminar

In the last 15 years, White and Huisken-Sinestrari developed a far-reaching structure theory for the mean curvature flow of mean convex hypersurfaces. Their papers provide a package of estimates and structural results that yield a precise description of singularities and of high curvature regions in a mean convex flow. In the present talk, we explain a new treatment of the theory of mean convex (and k-convex) flows. This includes: (1) an estimate for derivatives of curvatures, (2) a convexity estimate, (3) a cylindrical estimate, (4) a global convergence theorem, (5) a structure theorem for ancient solutions, and (6) a partial regularity theorem. Our new proofs are both more elementary and substantially shorter than the original arguments. Our estimates are local and universal.

Speaker: Robert Haslhofer , NYU
Location:
Fine Hall 314
November 15, 2013
3:00pm - 4:00pm
##### Singularities of the L^2 curvature flow
###### Differential Geometry & Geometric Analysis Seminar

The L2 norm of the Riemannian curvature tensor is a natural energy to associate to a Riemannian manifold, especially in dimension 4. A natural path for understanding the structure of this functional and its
minimizers is via its gradient flow, the "L2 flow."  This is a quasi-linear fourth order parabolic equation for a Riemannian metric, which one might hope shares behavior in common with the Yang-Mills flow.
We verify this idea by exhibiting structural results for finite time singularities of this flow resembling results on Yang-Mills flow.  We also exhibit a new short-time existence statement for the flow exhibiting a

Speaker: Jeffry Streets, University of California-Irvine
Location:
Fine Hall 314
November 22, 2013
3:00pm - 4:00pm
###### Differential Geometry & Geometric Analysis Seminar
Speaker: Ailana Fraser, University of British Columbia
Location:
Fine Hall 314
November 22, 2013
4:15pm - 5:15pm
##### Connected sum construction of constant Q-curvature manifolds in higher dimensions
###### Differential Geometry & Geometric Analysis Seminar

This is a special talk in addition to the 3:00 pm talk on the same date.  In geometric analysis, gluing constructions are well-known methods to create new solutions to nonlinear PDEs from existing ones. For a compact Riemannian manifold (M, g) of dimension n at least 6 with constant Q-curvature and satisfying a nondegeneracy condition, we show that one can construct many other examples of constant Q-curvature manifolds by a gluing construction. In particular, we prove the existence of solutions of a fourth-order PDE, which implies the existence of a smooth metric with constant Q-curvature on the connected sum. In this talk, I
will begin with denitions of Q-curvature and some background, and then give an overview of the gluing procedure.

Speaker: Yueh-Ju Lin , University of Notre Dame
Location:
Fine Hall 314
December 6, 2013
3:00pm - 4:00pm
##### Uniformity of harmonic map heat flow at infinite time
###### Differential Geometry & Geometric Analysis Seminar

We will discuss an energy convexity along the harmonic map heat flow with small initial energy and fixed boundary data on the unit 2-disk. In particular, this shows that such weak harmonic map heat flow converges uniformly in time strongly in the W^{1,2}-topology, as time goes to infinity, to the unique limiting harmonic map.

Speaker: Longzhi Lin, Rutgers University
Location:
Fine Hall 314
December 10, 2013
4:50pm - 5:50pm
##### H\"older estimates for fully nonlinear parabolic integro-differential equations
###### Differential Geometry & Geometric Analysis Seminar

Please note special day, time and location.  We will revisit H\"older estimates for some non local problems we worked recently with G. D\'avila. They arise in stochastic optimal control
driven by purely jump processes. Each one of them can be considered as an extension of the Krylov-Safanov regularity theory for fully non linear second order equations. We will start by motivating these equations, then we will see how the proofs work for simpler models and finally discuss how those ideas can be adapted to the nonlocal setting.

Speaker: Hector Chang , Columbia University
Location:
Fine Hall 224
December 13, 2013
3:00pm - 4:00pm
##### On the singularities of the Szego projections on CR manifolds
###### Differential Geometry & Geometric Analysis Seminar

In this talk, I will report the first part of my paper(Projections  in several complex variables, Mem. Soc. Math. France, 2010, 131 p.). In this work, we completely study the heat equation method of Menikoff-Sjostrand and  apply it to the Kohn Laplacian defined on a compact orientable connected CR manifold. We then get the full asymptotic expansion of the Szego projection for (0, q) forms when the Levi form is non-degenerate. This generalizes a result of Boutet de Monvel and Sjostrand for (0,0) forms.

Speaker: Chin-Yu Hsiao , Academia Sinica, Taipei
Location:
Fine Hall 314
January 17, 2014
3:00pm - 4:00pm
##### Differential forms in Heisenberg groups and div-curl systems
###### Differential Geometry & Geometric Analysis Seminar

In this talk we present a result proved in collaboration with Annalisa Baldi. We prove a family of inequalities for differential forms in Heisenberg groups (Rumin’s complex), that are the natural counterpart of a class of div-curl inequalities in de Rham’s  complex proved by Lanzani & Stein, Bourgain & Brezis.

Speaker: Bruno Franchi , Universita di Bologna
Location:
Fine Hall 314
January 31, 2014
3:00pm - 4:00pm
##### The log zoo
###### Differential Geometry & Geometric Analysis Seminar

The compact four-manifolds that admit a Kahler metric with positive Ricci curvature have been classified in the 19th century: they come in 10 families. In analogy with conical Riemann surfaces (e.g., football, teardrop) and hyperbolic 3-folds with a cone singularity along a link appearing in Thurston's program, one may consider 4-folds with a Kahler metric having "edge singularities", namely admitting a 2-dimensional cone singularity transverse to an immersed minimal surface, a `complex edge'. What are all the pairs (4-fold, immersed surface) that admit a Kahler metric with positive Ricci curvature away from the edge? In joint work with I. Cheltsov we classify all such pairs under some assumptions.

Speaker: Yanir Rubinstein , University of Maryland
Location:
Fine Hall 314
February 19, 2014
3:00pm - 4:00pm
##### A proof of the Alexanderov's Uniqueness Theorem for Convex Surfaces in R3
###### Differential Geometry & Geometric Analysis Seminar

PLEASE NOTE SPECIAL DAY (WEDNESDAY).  CLICK ON SEMINAR TITLE FOR COMPLETE ABSTRACT.  A classical uniqueness theorem of Alexandrov says that: if M and M_0 are two closed strictly convex C^2 surface in R^3 and satisfy f(a,b) = f(c,d), at points of M, M_0 with parallel normals, for some C^1 function f(x,y) with \partial_{x}f\partial_{y}f>0, then M is equal to M_0 up to a translation. We will talk about a new PDE proof for this theorem by using the maximal principle and weak uniqueness continuation theorem of Bers-Nirenberg. More generally, we prove a version of this theorem with the minimal regularity assumption: the spherical hessians of the supporting functions for the corresponding convex bodies as Radon measures are nonsingular. This is a joint work with P. Guan and Z. Wang.

Speaker: Xiangwen Zhang , Columbia University
Location:
Fine Hall 314