A general form of the weak maximum principle and some applications (Q2436067)

A well known result due to \textit{H. Omori} [J. Math. Soc. Japan 19, 205--214 (1967; Zbl 0154.21501)] and \textit{S.- Yau} [Commun. Pure Appl. Math. 28, 201--228 (1975; Zbl 0291.31002)], named as the Omori-Yau maximum principle, states that on a complete Riemannian manifold \(\left( {M,\left\langle , \right\rangle } \right)\) with Ricci tensor bounded from below, for any function \(u \in {C^2}\left( M \right)\) with \({u^*} = {\sup _M}u < + \infty \) there exists a sequence \(\left\{ {{x_k}} \right\} \subset M\) with the following properties \( \left. a \right)u\left( {{x_k}} \right) > {u^*} - \frac{1}{k},\left. b \right)\Delta u\left( {{x_k}} \right) < \frac{1}{k},\left. c \right)\left| {\nabla u} \right|\left( {{x_k}} \right) < \frac{1}{k} \) for eack \(k \in \mathbb{N}\). The aim of this paper is to introduce new forms of the weak and Omori-Yau maximum principles for linear operators, notably for trace type operators, and show their usefulness, for instance, in the context of PDE's and in the theory of hypersurfaces. Moreover, this approach, based on the existence of some auxiliary function satisfying appropriate conditions, has revealed to be of great versatility in geometric applications, for instance, in the geometry of submanifolds and in the study of soliton structures. In the final part of the paper, the authors consider a large class of non-linear operators and show that their previous results can be appropriately generalized to this case.