We construct 2-surfaces of prescribed mean curvature in 3manifolds carrying asymptotically flat initial data for an isolated gravitating system with rather general decay conditions. The surfaces in question form a regular foliation of the asymptotic region of such a manifold. We recover physically relevant data, especially the ADM-momentum, from the geometry of the foliation. For a given set of data (M, g,K), with a three dimensional manifoldM, its Riemannian metric g, and the second fundamental form K in the surrounding four dimensional Lorentz space time manifold, the equation we solve is H+P = const or H−P = const. Here H is the mean curvature, and P = trK is the 2-trace of K along the solution surface. This is a degenerate elliptic equation for the position of the surface. It prescribes the mean curvature anisotropically, since P depends on the direction of the normal.

We discuss our recent work [4] in which gravitational radiation was studied by evaluating the Wang-Yau quasi-local mass of surfaces of fixed size at the infinity of both axial and polar perturbations of the Schwarzschild spacetime, \`{a} la Chandrasekhar [1].

The Wess-Zumino-Witten term was first introduced in the low energy σ-model which describes pions, the Goldstone bosons for the broken flavor symmetry in quantum chromodynamics. We introduce a new definition of this term in arbitrary gravitational backgrounds. It matches several features of the fundamental gauge theory, including the presence of fermionic states and the anomaly of the flavor symmetry. To achieve this matching, we use a certain generalized differential cohomology theory. We also prove a formula for the determinant line bundle of special families of Dirac operators on 4-manifolds in terms of this cohomology theory. One consequence is that there are no global anomalies in the Standard Model (in arbitrary gravitational backgrounds).

Let fn → f0 be a convergent sequence of rational maps, preserving critical relations, and f0 be geometrically finite with parabolic points. It is known that for some unlucky choices of sequences fn,the Julia sets J(fn) and their Hausdorff dimensions may fail to converge as n → ∞. Our main result here is to prove the convergence of J(fn) and H.dim J(fn) for generic sequences fn. The same conclusion was obtained earlier, with stronger hypotheses on the sequence fn, by Bodart-Zinsmeister and then by McMullen. We characterize those choices of fn by means of flows of appropriate polynomial vector fields (following Douady-Estrada-Sentenac). We first prove an independent result about the (s-dimensional) length of separatrices of such flows, and then use it to estimate tails of Poincar´e series. This, together with existing techniques,provides the desired control of conformal densities and Hausdorff dimensions. Our method may be applied to other problems relatedto parabolic perturbations.

In this paper we investigate the life-span of classical solutions to the hyperbolic geometric flow in two space variables with slow decay initial data. By establishing some new estimates on the solutions of linear wave equations in two space variables, we give a lower bound of the life-span of classical solutions to the hyperbolic geometric flow with asymptotic flat initial Riemann surfaces.