Calibrations and isoperimetric profiles

We equip many non compact non simply connected surfaces with smooth Riemannian metrics whose isoperimetric profile is smooth, a highly non generic property. The computation of the profile is based on a calibration argument, a rearrangement argument, the Bol-Fiala curvature dependent inequality, together with new results on the profile of surfaces of revolution and some hardware know-how.Comment: To appear soon in American Journal of Mathematics, a journal published by The Johns Hopkins University Pres

Smooth embeddings with Stein surface images

A simple characterization is given of open subsets of a complex surface that smoothly perturb to Stein open subsets. As applications, complex 2-space C^2 contains domains of holomorphy (Stein open subsets) that are exotic R^4's, and others homotopy equivalent to the 2-sphere but cut out by smooth, compact 3-manifolds. Pseudoconvex embeddings of Brieskorn spheres and other 3-manifolds into complex surfaces are constructed, as are pseudoconcave holomorphic fillings (with disagreeing contact and boundary orientations). Pseudoconcave complex structures on Milnor fibers are found. A byproduct of this construction is a simple polynomial expression for the signature of the (p,q,npq-1) Milnor fiber. Akbulut corks in complex surfaces can always be chosen to be pseudoconvex or pseudoconcave submanifods. The main theorem is expressed via Stein handlebodies (possibly infinite), which are defined holomorphically in all dimensions by extending Stein theory to manifolds with noncompact boundary.Comment: 26 pages, 1 figure. Version 2 has minor stylistic changes for clarity, remark expanded at end of Section 4; accepted for publication by the Journal of Topolog