We show the regularity of, and derive a-priori estimates for (weakly) harmonic maps from a Riemannian manifold into a Euclidean sphere under the assumption that the image avoids some neighborhood of a half-equator. The proofs combine constructions of strictly convex functions and the regularity theory of quasilinear elliptic systems. We apply these results to the spherical and Euclidean Bernstein problems for minimal hypersurfaces, obtaining new conditions under which compact minimal hypersurfaces in spheres or complete minimal hypersurfaces in Euclidean spaces are trivial.

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In this paper, we observe that the brane functional studied in hep-th/9910245 can be used to generalize some of the works that Schoen and I [4] did many years ago. The key idea is that if a three dimensional manifold M has a boundary with strongly positive mean curvature, the effect of this mean curvature can influence the internal geometry of M. For example, if the scalar curvature of M is greater than certain constant related to this boundary effect, no incompressible surface of higher genus can exist.

We study the existence of special Lagrangian submanifolds of log Calabi–Yau manifolds equipped with the complete Ricci-flat Kähler metric constructed by Tian and Yau. We prove that if X is a Tian–Yau manifold and if the compact Calabi–Yau manifold at infinity admits a single special Lagrangian, then X admits infinitely many disjoint special Lagrangians. In complex dimension 2, we prove that if Y is a del Pezzo surface or a rational elliptic surface and D∈|-KY| is a smooth divisor with D^2=d , then X=Y\D admits a special Lagrangian torus fibration, as conjectured by Strominger–Yau–Zaslow and Auroux. In fact, we show that X admits twin special Lagrangian fibrations, confirming a prediction of Leung and Yau. In the special case that Y is a rational elliptic surface or Y=P^2, we identify the singular fibers for generic data, thereby confirming two conjectures of Auroux. Finally, we prove that after a hyper-Kähler rotation, X can be compactified to the complement of a Kodaira type I_d fiber appearing as a singular fiber in a rational elliptic surface π: Y →P^1.

Unit tangent bundle of a surface carries various information of tangent vector fields on that surface. For 2-spheres (ie genus-zero closed surfaces), the unit tangent bundle is a closed 3-manifold that has non-trivial topology and cannot be embedded in R3. Therefore it cannot be constructed by existing mesh generation algorithms directly. This work aims at the first discrete construction of unit tangent bundles over 2-spheres using tetrahedral meshes. We propose a two-stage algorithm for the construction, which starts from constructing two local bundles and then combines them into a global bundle.