Omori-Yau maximum principles, \(V\)-harmonic maps and their geometric applications (Q465479)

\textit{H. Omori} [J. Math. Soc. Japan 19, 205--214 (1967; Zbl 0154.21501)] established the generalized maximum principle for non-compact complete Riemannian manifolds of curvature \(\geq-K\) for some \(K\). \textit{S.-t. Yau} [Commun. Pure Appl. Math. 28, 201--228 (1975; Zbl 0291.31002)] and later \textit{S. Y. Cheng} and \textit{S.-T. Yau} [Commun. Pure Appl. Math. 28, 333--354 (1975; Zbl 0312.53031)] extended Omori's maximum principle to non-compact complete Riemannian manifolds with Ricci curvature bounded below by \(-K\) (\(K>0\)). In place of Ricci tensor, the authors consider the Bakry-Emery Ricci tensor. Let \(\left\langle M,g\right\rangle \) be a Riemannian manifold and \(V\) be a smooth vector field on \(M\). Then the Bakry-Emery Ricci tensor is \(\text{Ric}_{V}=\text{Ric} -\frac{1}{2}L_{V}g\), where \(L_{V}g\) is the Lie derivative of the metric tensor \(g\). In Section 2 (Theorem 1) the authors prove a generalization of the Omori-Yau-Cheng maximum principle under the Bakry-Emery Ricci tensor condition for non-compact complete Riemannian manifolds \(\left\langle M,g\right\rangle \) of dimension \(m\). Namely, let \(x_{0}\in M\), \(r\left( x\right) =\text{dist}\left( x,x_{0}\right) ,\) \(F\left( t\right) \) be a positive non-decreasing \(C^{1}\)-function such that \(\int_{0}^{+\infty }dr/F\left( r\right) =+\infty\), and \(v\left( t\right) \) be a non-decreasing function satisfying \(\lim_{r\rightarrow+\infty}\frac{v\left( r\right) }{\sqrt{F\left( r\right) }\left( \int_{0}^{r}dt/\sqrt{F\left( t\right) }+1\right) }\) \(=0\). Suppose that \(\text{Ric}_{V} \geq-F\left( r\left( x\right) \right) \) for some smooth vector field \(V\) such that \(\left\langle V,\nabla r\right\rangle \leq v\left( r\right) \). If \(f\in C^{2}\left( M\right) \) satisfies the condition \(\lim_{x\rightarrow \infty}f\left( x\right) /\varphi\circ r\left( x\right) =0\), where \(\varphi\left( t\right) =\log\left( \int_{0}^{t}ds/\sqrt{F\left( s\right) }+1\right) \), then there \ is a sequence \(\left( x_{j}\right) _{j=1}^{\infty}\) of points in \(M\) such that (i) \(\lim_{j\rightarrow\infty }f\left( x_{j}\right) =\sup_{x\in M}f\left( x\right) \), (ii) \(\lim_{j\rightarrow\infty}\left| \nabla f\left( x_{j}\right) \right| =0\) and (iii) \(\lim_{j\rightarrow\infty}\Delta_{V}f\left( x_{j}\right) \leq0\) where \(\Delta_{V}f=\Delta f+\left\langle V,\nabla f\right\rangle \) is the \(V\)-Laplacian of \(f\). A Riemannian manifold \(\left\langle M,g\right\rangle \) is called a Ricci solution if \(\text{Ric}_{V}=\rho g\) for some constant \(\rho\). An \(m\)-dimensional submanifold \(M\) of \(\mathbb{R}^{m+n}\) is called a self-shrinker (in \(\mathbb{R}^{m+n}\)) if the position vector field of \(M\) and the mean curvature vector of \(M\) satisfy the following equation: \(H=-X^{N}/2\). In Section 2, the authors also derive several versions of the Omori-Yau-Cheng maximum principle under the Bakry-Emery Ricci tensor condition for Ricci solutions (Theorems 2, 3) and for self-shrinkers (Theorems 4, 5). Section 2 is concluded with two applications: necessary and sufficient conditions for the mean curvature of \(M\) to be constant (Theorem 6) and sufficient conditions for \(M\) to be an affine \(m\)-plane (Theorem 7). The main results of Section 3 are related to derivation of Bernstein properties of self-shrinkers.