No label defined (Q4800754)

These course notes deal with applications to Riemannian geometry of tools used in the study of elliptic partial differential equations. In Chapter 1, the proof of the Laplacian comparison theorem is given. Moreover, the author discusses some of its applications, like the Bishop volume comparison theorem, the mean value inequality for nonnegative superharmonic functions on manifolds with nonnnegative Ricci curvature and the Cheeger-Gromoll splitting theorem. Chapter 2 deals with the Steklov problem (i.e., in its physical formulation, of finding a steady state temperature function \(\varphi\) on a compact Riemannian manifold with boundary, such that the flux of \(\varphi\) on the boundary is proportional to \(\varphi\)). The Laplacian comparison theorem, the maximum principle and integral techniques are used to get upper and lower estimates of the first nonzero Steklov eigenvalue. Chapter 3 is devoted to the problem of conformal deformation of metrics on a compact Riemannian manifold with boundary. In particular, the problem of prescribing the mean curvature and setting the scalar curvature to zero in the interior on manifolds with zero Sobolev quotient is studied.