Generalized maximum principles and the unicity of complete spacelike hypersurfaces immersed in a Lorentzian product space (Q2452334)

The authors prove several classification results for complete space-like hypersurfaces \(\Sigma^n\) of a Lorentzian product space \(\overline M^{n+1}:= \mathbb R _1 \times M^n,\) where \(\mathbb R _1\) is the real line equipped with a negative definite inner product and \(M^n\) is a connected oriented Riemannian manifold of dimension \(n.\) This product manifold is naturally equipped with the Lorentzian metric \(\langle \; , \; \rangle = - \pi^*_{\mathbb R}(dt^2) + \pi_M^* (\langle \; , \; \rangle_M),\) where \(\pi_{\mathbb R}\) and \(\pi_M\) denote the canonical projections from \(\overline M^{n+1}\) onto each factor. Let \(H\) denote the mean curvature of \(\Sigma^n\) in \(\overline M^{n+1},\;\) \(h = (\pi_{\mathbb R})|_{\Sigma}\) be the height function and for a fixed \(t_0 \in \mathbb R\) call \(\{ t_0 \} \times M^n\) a slice of \(\overline M^{n+1}.\) The authors consider isometric immersions \(\psi : \Sigma^n \to \overline M^{n+1} = \mathbb R_1 \times M^n\) of a complete space-like hypersurface whose sectional curvature \(K_M\) of its fiber \(M^n\) satisfies \(- \kappa \leq K_M \leq 0\) for some constant \(\kappa > 0.\) In their first theorem the authors assume additionally that \(\Sigma^n\) lies between two slices of \(\overline M^{n+1}\) and that \(|\nabla h|\) is bounded on \(\Sigma^n.\) Then if \(H\) is bounded and if it does not change sign on \(\Sigma^n\) it follows that \(H\) is not globally bounded away from zero. In particular, if \(H\) is constant then \(\Sigma^n\) is maximal, i.e., \(H = 0.\) The technical tool for the proof is the well-known maximum principle of Omori and Yau. In their second theorem the authors assume \(- \kappa \leq K_M \leq 0\) and that \(H\) is now constant. Using a generalized maximum principle of Yau, they prove that if the height function satisfies one of the two conditions, one of which is \(|\nabla h|^2 \leq [n/k (n-1)] H^2,\) then \(\Sigma^n\) is a slice. It is also proved in this paper that a complete space-like hypersurface \(\Sigma^n\) with mean curvature \(H\) which does not change sign and for which \(|\nabla h|\) is Lebesgue integrable is necessarily maximal and with some additional conditions on the Ricci curvature that it must be a slice. These results and techniques are then applied to study the rigidity of entire vertical graphs of smooth functions \(u \in C^{\infty}(M)\) in such Lorentzian product ambient spaces.