On the free boundary min-max geodesics

DOI10.1093/IMRN/RNV184MaRDI QIDQ2800175zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Xin Zhou

Publication date 15 April 2016

Published in IMRN. International Mathematics Research Notices (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1504.00971

zbMATH Keywords

Birkhoff curve shorteningfree boundary problemgeodesicsmin-max

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Geodesics in global differential geometry (53C22)

Abstract: Given a Riemannian manifold and a closed submanifold, we find a geodesic segment with free boundary on the given submanifold. This is a corollary of the min-max theory which we develop in this article for the free boundary variational problem. In particular, we develop a modified Birkhoff curve shortening process to achieve a strong "Colding-Minicozzi" type min-max approximation result.

Review text

The main result of this paper is that, given a closed submanifold \(M\) of a Riemannian manifold, there exists a geodesic segment with free boundary on \(M\). In other words, there exists a geodesic segment that begins and ends in this submanifold, and does so orthogonally. This is proved through a min-max theory for free boundary variational problems, which is an important tool to produce critical points of positive Morse index. One of the key ingredients is an adaptation of Birkhoff's curve shortening process to curves whose endpoints lie on a given submanifold.

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Cited in

(10)

• Minimal currents, geodesics, and relaxation of variational integrals on mappings of bounded variation
• A maximum principle for free boundary minimal varieties of arbitrary codimension
• Min-max minimal disks with free boundary in Riemannian manifolds
• Chord shortening flow and a theorem of Lusternik and Schnirelmann
• Minimal Geodesics Along Volume-Preserving Maps, Through Semidiscrete Optimal Transport
• The first width of non-negatively curved surfaces with convex boundary
• Existence of closed embedded curves of constant curvature via min-max
• Geodesic loops and orthogonal geodesic chords without self-intersections
• The width of embedded circles
• Minimizing closed geodesics via critical points of the uniform energy

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