Morse index and multiplicity of min-max minimal hypersurfaces

The Min-max Theory for the area functional, started by Almgren in the early 1960s and greatly improved by Pitts in 1981, was left incomplete because it gave no Morse index estimate for the min-max minimal hypersurface. We advance the theory further and prove the first general Morse index bounds for minimal hypersurfaces produced by it. We also settle the multiplicity problem for the classical case of one-parameter sweepouts.Comment: Cambridge Journal of Mathematics, 4 (4), 463-511, 201

Existence of infinitely many minimal hypersurfaces in positive Ricci curvature

In the early 1980s, S. T. Yau conjectured that any compact Riemannian three-manifold admits an infinite number of closed immersed minimal surfaces. We use min-max theory for the area functional to prove this conjecture in the positive Ricci curvature setting. More precisely, we show that every compact Riemannian manifold with positive Ricci curvature and dimension at most seven contains infinitely many smooth, closed, embedded minimal hypersurfaces. In the last section we mention some open problems related with the geometry of these minimal hypersurfaces.Comment: 34 pages, to appear in Inventiones Mathematica

Min-max theory and the energy of links

Freedman, He, and Wang, conjectured in 1994 that the Mobius energy should be minimized, among the class of all nontrivial links in Euclidean space, by the stereographic projection of the standard Hopf link. We prove this conjecture using the min-max theory of minimal surfaces.Comment: 19 pages. Revised version. To appear in J. Amer. Math. So

Weyl law for the volume spectrum

Given $M$ a Riemannian manifold with (possibly empty) boundary, we show that its volume spectrum $\{\omega_p(M)\}_{p\in\mathbb{N}}$ satisfies a Weyl law that was conjectured by Gromov.Comment: Revised version. To appear in Annals of Mathematic

Rigidity of min-max minimal spheres in three-manifolds

In this paper we consider min-max minimal surfaces in three-manifolds and prove some rigidity results. For instance, we prove that any metric on a 3-sphere which has scalar curvature greater than or equal to 6 and is not round must have an embedded minimal sphere of area strictly smaller than $4\pi$ and index at most one. If the Ricci curvature is positive we also prove sharp estimates for the width