Min-max minimal hypersurface in manifolds with convex boundary and \({\mathrm {Ric}}\geq 0\) (Q1659929)

Let \((M^{n+1},\partial M,g)\) be a compact manifold with non-negative Ricci curvature, convex boundary and \(2\leq n\leq 6\). The main result (proven in Section~7) is that the min-max minimal hypersurface with respect to one-parameter families of hypersurfaces in \((M,\partial M)\) is orientable, of index one and multiplicity one. The goal of Section 2 is two free variation formulae, which are used to show the existence of good neighborhoods of free boundary minimal hypersurfaces. In Section~3, the author construct sweepouts from any free boundary minimal hypersurfaces in the continuous settings. A generalized smooth family \(\{\Sigma_t\}_{t\in[0,1]}\) is called a \textit{sweepout} of \((M, \partial M, T )\) [\textit{C. De Lellis} and \textit{J. Ramic}, Ann. Inst. Fourier 68, No. 5, 1909--1986 (2018; Zbl 1408.53079)] if there exists a family of relative open sets \(\{\Omega_t\}_{t\in[0,1]}\) such that sw1:~\((\Sigma_t\setminus \partial\Omega_t)\subset P_t\) for any \(t\in[0, 1]\); sw2:~\(\text{Volume}(\Omega_t\setminus\Omega_s) +\text{Volume}(\Omega_s\setminus\Omega_t)\to0\) as \(s\to t\); sw3:~\(\Omega_1 = M,\;\Sigma_0 = T,\;\Sigma_t\cap T = \emptyset\) for \(t > 0\), and \(\{\Sigma_t\}_{t\in[0,\epsilon]}\) is a smooth foliation of a neighborhood of \(T\) for some small \(\epsilon > 0\), i.e., there exists a Morse function \(r\geq0\) with \(\Sigma_t = r^{-1}(t)\) for \(t\in[0, \epsilon]\). Section~4 represents the Almgren-Pitts min-max theory for compact manifolds with boundary, developed in [\textit{A. Ros}, J. Differ. Geom. 74, No. 1, 69--92 (2006; Zbl 1110.53009)]. In~Section~5, the sweepouts from Section 3 are discretized to be continuous in the mass norm. Then it is shown that all discretized sweepouts are in the homotopy class corresponding to the fundamental class. The~multiplicity and orientation of the min-max hypersurfaces are characterized in Section~6.