Ricci flow deforms the Riemannian metric proportionally to the curvature, such that the curvature evolves according to a heat diffusion process and eventually becomes constant everywhere. Ricci flow has demonstrated its great potential by solving various problems in many fields, which can be hardly handled by alternative methods so far.

Let (M, h) be a compact 4-dimensional Einstein manifold, and suppose that h is Hermitian with respect to some complex structure J on M. Then either (M, J, h) is K¨ahler-Einstein, or else, up to rescaling and isometry, it is one of the following two exceptions: the Page metric on CP2#CP2, or the Einstein metric on CP2#2CP2 discovered in [8].

In this paper we introduce the interpolationdegeneration strategy to study KhlerEinstein metrics on a smooth Fano manifold with cone singularities along a smooth divisor that is proportional to the anti-canonical divisor. By interpolation we show the angles in (0, 2] that admit a conical KhlerEinstein metric form a connected interval, and by degeneration we determine the boundary of the interval in some important cases. As a first application, we show that there exists a KhlerEinstein metric on P 2 with cone singularity along a smooth conic (degree 2) curve if and only if the angle is in (/2, 2]. When the angle is 2/3 this proves the existence of a SasakiEinstein metric on the link of a three dimensional <i>A</i> ₂ singularity, and thus answers a question posed by GauntlettMartelliSparksYau. As a second application we prove a version of Donaldsons conjecture about conical Khler

In relativity, the energy of a moving particle depends on the observer, and the rest mass is the minimal energy seen among all observers. The Wang–Yau quasi-local mass for a surface in spacetime introduced in Wang and Yau (Phys Rev Lett 102(2):021101, 2009 ; Commun Math Phys 288(3):919–942, 2009) is defined by minimizing quasi-local energy associated with admissible isometric embeddings of the surface into the Minkowski space. A critical point of the quasi-local energy is an isometric embedding satisfying the Euler–Lagrange equation. In this article, we prove results regarding both local and global minimizing properties of critical points of the Wang–Yau quasi-local energy. In particular, under a condition on the mean curvature vector we show a critical point minimizes the quasi-local energy locally. The same condition also implies that the critical point is globally minimizing among all axially symmetric embedding provided the image of the associated isometric embedding lies in a totally geodesic Euclidean 3-space.

Let  $\sum$ be a complete minimal Lagrangian submanifold of $\mathbb{C}^n$. We identify regions in the Grassmannian of Lagrangian subspaces so that whenever the image of the Gauss map of $\sum$ lies in one of these regions, then  $\sum$ is an affine space.