We study the limit of quasilocal energy defined in [7] and [8] for a family of spacelike 2-surfaces approaching null infinity of an asymptotically flat spacetime. It is shown that Lorentzian symmetry is recovered and an energy-momentum 4-vector is obtained. In particular, the result is consistent with the Bondi–Sachs energy-momentum at a retarded time. The quasilocal mass in [7] and [8] is defined by minimizing quasilocal energy among admissible isometric embeddings and observers. The solvability of the Euler-Lagrange equation for this variational problem is also discussed in both the asymptotically flat and asymptotically null cases. Assuming analyticity, the equation can be solved and the solution is locally minimizing in all orders. In particular, this produces an optimal reference hypersurface in the Minkowski space for the spatial or null exterior region of an asymptotically flat spacetime.

Let M be a compact Hamiltonian T−space, with finite fixed point set MT . An equivariant class is determined by its restriction to MT , and to each fixed point p ∈ MT and generic component of the moment map, there corresponds a canonical class τp. For a special class of Hamiltonian T−spaces, the value τp,q of τp at a fixed point q can be determined through an iterated interpolation procedure, and we obtained a formula for τp,q as a sum over ascending chains from p to q. In general the number of such chains is huge, and the main result of this paper is a procedure to reduce the number of relevant chains, through a systematic degeneration of the interpolation direction. The resulting formula for τp,q resembles, via the localization formula, an integral over a space of chains, and we prove that, for complex Grassmannians, τp,q can indeed be expressed as the integral of an equivariant form over a smooth Schubert variety.

We consider complex projective space with its Fubini–Study metric and the X-ray transform defined by integration over its geodesics. We identify the kernel of this transform acting on symmetric tensor fields.

We study three-dimensional Riemannian manifolds with nonnegative scalar curvature. We find new topological obstruction for such manifolds. Our method turns out to be useful in studying the positive mass conjecture in general relativity.

We prove that the number of critical points of a Li–Tam Green’s function on a complete open Riemannian surface of finite type admits a topological upper bound, given by the first Betti number of the surface. In higher dimensions, we show that there are no topological upper bounds on the number of critical points by constructing, for each nonnegative integer N, a Riemannian manifold diffeomorphic to Rn (n > 3) whose minimal Green’s function has at least N non-degenerate critical points. Variations on the method of proof of the latter result yield contractible n-manifolds whose minimal Green’s functions have level sets diffeomorphic to any fixed codimension 1 compact submanifold of R^n.