Some new differentiable sphere theorems are obtained via the Ricci flow and stable currents. We prove that if Mn is a compact manifold whose normalized scalar curvature and sectional curvature satisfy the pointwise pinching condition R0 > nKmax, where n 2 ( 1 4 , 1) is an explicit positive constant, then M is diffeomorphic to a spherical space form. We also provide a partial answer to Yau’s conjecture on the pinching theorem. Moreover, we prove that if Mn(n  3) is a compact manifold whose (n . 2)-th Ricci curvature and normalized scalar curvature satisfy the pointwise condition Ric(n.2) min > n(n .2)R0, where n 2 ( 1 4 , 1) is an explicit positive constant, then M is diffeomorphic to a spherical space form. We then extend the sphere theorems above to submanifolds in a Riemannian manifold. Finally we give a classification of submanifolds with weakly pinched curvatures, which improves the differentiable pinching theorems due to Andrews, Baker, and the authors.

Let X be a compact connected strongly pseudoconvex CR manifold of real dimension 2n . 1 in CN. It has been an interesting question to find an intrinsic smoothness criteria for the complex Plateau problem. For n  3 and N = n+1, Yau found a necessary and sufficient condition for the interior regularity of the HarveyLawson solution to the complex Plateau problem by means of Kohn–Rossi cohomology groups on X in 1981. For n = 2 and N  n + 1, the problem has been open for over 30 years. In this paper we introduce a new CR invariant g(1,1)(X) of X. The vanishing of this invariant will give the interior regularity of the Harvey–Lawson solution up to normalization. In the case n = 2 and N = 3, the vanishing of this invariant is enough to give the interior regularity.

An n dimensional minimal submanifold $\sum$  of $R^{n+m}$ is called nonparametric if $\sum$  can be represented as the graph of a vector-valued function $f : D \subset \mathbb{ R}^n \to \mathbb{R}^n$. This note provides a sufficient condition for the stability of such $\sum$ in terms of the norm of the differential $df$.

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.

We consider a characteristic problem of the vacuum Einstein equations with part of the initial data given on a future asymptotically flat null cone, and show that the solution exists uniformly around the null cone for general such initial data. Therefore, the solution contains a piece of the future null infinity. The initial data are not required to be small and the decaying condition is consistent with those in the works of [8] and [11].