Local isoperimetric inequalities for sectors on surfaces and cones (Q2644362)

Let \(M^2\) be a \(C^{\infty }\) Riemannian surface, let \(p\in M\) and \(u,v \in T_pM\) be unit vectors. Let \(\gamma _u\) and \(\gamma _v\) be the geodesics starting from \(p\) with \(\gamma _u^{\prime }(0)=u, \gamma _v^{\prime }(0)=v.\) Let \(\Gamma \) be a \(C^{\infty }\) curve joining two points of \(\gamma _u\) and \(\gamma _v\), respectively, without intersections. The set of points of \(M\) contained between the geodesics and the curve is called a sector with vertex \(p\), base \(\Gamma \) and sides \(\gamma _u\) and \(\gamma _v.\) The angle of this sector is the angle between \(u\) and \(v\) and the direction is \({u+v\over 2}.\) The isoperimetric problem for sectors consists in finding the sector with minimal base length, for fixed vertex, direction, angle and area. Let \(M\) be a Riemannian \(C^{\infty }\) manifold of dimension \(n\), \(p \in M\) and \(\Omega \) be an embedded \(C^{\infty }\) hypersurface radially connected to \(p.\) Given \(q \in \Omega ,a\) will denote the unit vector in \(T_pM\) satisfying \(q= \exp _p \operatorname{dist} (p,q)a.\) By \(B_r(a)\) we shall denote the geodesic ball of centre \(a\) and radius \(r\) in the unit sphere \(S^{n-1}\subset T_pM.\) A radius \(r\) is considered such that \(\exp_p(tu)\) is a minimizing geodesic from \(p\) to some point in \(\Omega \) for \(u \in B_r(a).\) Let \(l(u)= \text{Min} \{t \in (0, c(u))\mid \exp _p(tu) \in \Omega \}\). \(C\Omega (q,r)=\{\gamma _u([0, l(u)])\mid u \in B_r(a)\}\) is called the cone in \(M\) over \(\Omega \) with vertex \(p,\) centre \(q\) and angle \(2r.\) \(\Omega (q,r)=\{\exp_pl(u)u\mid u \in B_r(a)\}\) will be called the base of this cone and \(a\) will be called the direction of the cone. The isoperimetric problem for cones consists in finding the cone with minimal volume of its base for fixed vertex, solid angle and volume of the cone. The aim of this paper is to determine conditions for surfaces under which the solution of a restricted local isoperimetric problem for sectors with small solid angle is the circular sector. A similar problem is studied for general spherical cones on hypersurfaces in higher dimensional Riemannian manifolds.