Area minimizers and boundary rigidity of almost hyperbolic metrics (Q2376815)

The authors consider a compact \(n\)-dimensional Riemannian manifold \((M^n, g)\) with boundary \(\partial M\) and the boundary distance function \(bd_M\), given by the restriction of the distance function \(d_M\) to \(\partial M \times \partial M\), and say that \(M\) is boundary rigid if up to a boundary preserving isometry \(M\) is unique among all compact Riemannian manifolds \(M'\) with the same boundary and same boundary distance function. In a previous work [Ann. Math. (2) 171, No. 2, 1183--1211 (2010; Zbl 1192.53048)], the authors proved that if \(M\) is sufficiently close to a region in a Euclidean space, then \(M\) is boundary rigid. The main result of this paper is to obtain a similar result for the hyperbolic space, namely: Theorem 1.3: If \(D\subset \mathbb{H}^{n}\) is a compact connected region with smooth boundary \(\partial D\), then any metric \(g\) on a suitable \(C^r\)-neighborhood (\(r\) can be taken equal to three) of the standard hyperbolic metric \(g_0\) on \(D\) defines a boundary rigid space \((D,g)\). The proof of the boundary rigidity is inspired by that in the Euclidean case and consists in showing that \(M=(D,g)\) is a strict minimal filling, that is, \(M\) has minimal volume among all compact Riemannian manifold \(M'\) with the same boundary \(\partial M\) and with boundary distance function \(bd_{M'}\geq bd_M\), and equality of the volumes imply the existence of an isometry between \(M'\) and \(M\) that fixes the boundary. The authors follow a general strategy of defining a suitable distance-preserving map \(\Phi:M \to L^{\infty}(S)\), where \(S\) is a suitable measure space, that also preserves \(n\)-volumes and such that \(\Phi\) itself embeds \(M\) as a unique area minimizer, that is, any Lipschitz surface with the same boundary and same \(n\)-volume at \(L^{\infty}(S)\) is contained in \(\Phi(M)\). The existence of such map \(\Phi\) is sufficient to prove that \(M\) is a strict minimal filling, hence implying \(M\) is boundary rigid. In the hyperbolic case, this map is defined as a map \(\Phi:(\mathbb{H}^n,g) \to L^{\infty}(S)\) where \(g\) is a Riemannian metric that coincides with the canonical one \(g_0\) way from a geodesic disk that contains \(D\), and \(g\) is sufficiently close to \(g_0\) on that disk, and so \(S=S^{n-1}\) is also the ideal boundary of \(M=(\mathbb{H}^n,g)\). For each \(x\in M\) and each \(s\in S=\partial_{\infty}M\), \(\Phi(x)(s)\) is given by the Busemann function at the point \(x\), \(\Phi(x)(s)=\lim_{t\to\infty }d_M(x, \gamma_s(t)-t)\), defined with respect to the geodesic ray \(\gamma=\gamma_s\) from a fixed origin \(o\in\mathbb{H}^n\) to \(s\in S=\partial_{\infty}M\). A special Riemannian metric \(G\) on an open neighborhood \(\mathcal{U}\) of \(\Phi(M)\) in \(L^{\infty}(S)\) is built, that at each tangent space \(T_{\varphi}(L^{\infty}(S))\) is a suitable weighted \(L^2\)-inner product on \(S\). The weight depends on \(\varphi\), \(\Phi\), as well as on a suitable smooth projection map \(P:\mathcal{U}\to M\), a left inverse of \(\Phi\) that is built satisfying certain properties. With this metric, the authors define a notion of \(n\)-dimensional volume for Lipschitz maps from \(n\)-dimensional manifolds into \(L^{\infty}(S)\) for which \(\Phi\) has the required properties proving \(D\) is a strict minimal filling.