Area-minimizing hypersurfaces in manifolds of Ricci curvature bounded below (Q6042648)

Let \(\{ N_i \}\) be a sequence of \((n+1)\)-dimensional Riemannian manifolds with \(\mathrm{Ric}_{N_i} \geq -n\kappa^2\) on open balls \(B_{1+\kappa'} (p_i )\) for some \(\kappa \geq 0\) and \(\kappa' >0\). Then by Gromov's precompactness theorem, a subsequence of \(\{ B_1 (p_i )\}\) converges to a metric ball \(B_1 (p_{\infty} )\) in the Gromov-Hausdorff sense. Suppose that there exists a positive constant \(v\) such that the Hausdorff measure of unit balls satisfies \(\mathcal{H}^{n+1} (B_1 (p_i ))\geq v\) for any \(i\). This condition guarantees that the corresponding subsequence of \(\{ \mathcal{H}^{n+1} (B_1 (p_i ))\}\) converges to \(\mathcal{H}^{n+1} (B_1 (p_{\infty} ))\) (see [\textit{J. Cheeger} and \textit{T. H. Colding}, J. Differential Geom. 46, 406--480 (1997; Zbl 0902.53034)]). Let \(M_i\) be an area-minimizing hypersurface in \(B_1 (p_i )\) with \(\partial M_i \subset \partial B_1 (p_i )\). Suppose that the corresponding subsequence of \(\{ \Phi_i (M_i )\}\) converges to a closed set \(M_{\infty}\subset\overline{B_1 (p_{\infty} )}\) in the Hausdorff sense, where \(\Phi_i : B_1 (p_i ) \rightarrow B_1 (p_{\infty} )\) are \(\epsilon_i\)-Hausdorff approximations with \(\epsilon_i \rightarrow 0\). The limit \(M_{\infty}\) is the main object of study in this paper. The author shows that if \(\overline{B_1 (p_{\infty} )}\) is a smooth Riemannian manifold, then \(M_{\infty}\) is area-minimizing in \(B_1 (p_{\infty} )\). This was shown by [\textit{L. Simon}, Lectures on geometric measure theory. Proc. Centre Math. Anal. Aust. National Univ. 3, Australian National University, Canberra (1983; Zbl 0546.49019)] for the case of \(N_i =\mathbb{R}^{n+1}\). Let \(\mathcal{R}\), \(\mathcal{S}\) be the regular and singular parts of \(B_1 (p_{\infty} )\), respectively. Let \(\mathcal{S}_{M_{\infty}}\) be the singular set of \(M_{\infty}\) in \(\mathcal{R}\). This means that \(\mathcal{S}_{M_{\infty}}\) consists of the points where possible tangent cones of \(M_{\infty}\) are not flat. The author shows that either the Hausdorff dimension of \(\mathcal{S}_{M_{\infty}}\) does not exceed \(n-7\) or \(\mathcal{S}_{M_{\infty}}\) is empty according to whether \(n\geq 7\) or \(n<7\). The estimate for \(n\geq 7\) is sharp (see [\textit{E. Bombieri} et al., Invent. Math. 7, 243--268 (1969; Zbl 0183.25901); \textit{H. Federer}, Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 76, 767--771 (1970; Zbl 0194.35803)]). The case of \(n<7\) and \(\overline{B_1 (p_{\infty} )} \subset \mathbb{R}^{n+1}\) is due to [\textit{H. Federer}, Geometric measure theory. Die Grundlehren der mathematischen Wissenschaften in Einzeldarstellungen 153, Springer-Verlag, Berlin-Heidelberg-New York (1969; Zbl 0176.00801)]. The author shows that the Hausdorff dimension of \(\mathcal{S} \cap M_{\infty}\) does not exceed \(n-2\) and this estimate is sharp.