We consider contracting and expanding curvature flows in $\Ss$. When the flow hypersurfaces are strictly convex we establish a relation between the contracting hypersurfaces and the expanding hypersurfaces which is given by the Gau{\ss} map. The contracting hypersurfaces shrink to a point $x_0$ while the expanding hypersurfaces converge to the equator of the hemisphere $\mc H(-x_0)$. After rescaling, by the same scale factor, the rescaled hypersurfaces converge to the unit spheres with centers $x_0$ \resp $-x_0$ exponentially fast in $C^\un(\Ss[n])$.

In this note we show that one open 4-dimensional ellipsoid embeds symplectically into another if and only if the ECH capacities of the first are no larger than those of the second. This proves a conjecture due to Hofer. The argument uses the equivalence of the ellipsoidal embedding problem with a ball embedding problem that was recently established by McDuff. Its method is inspired by Hutchings’ recent results on embedded contact homology (ECH) capacities but does not use them.

We solve the Plateau problem for marginally outer trapped surfaces in general Cauchy data sets. We employ the Perron method and tools from geometric measure theory to force and control a blow-up of Jang’s equation. Substantial new geometric insights regarding the lower order properties of marginally outer trapped surfaces are gained in the process. The techniques developed in this paper are flexible and can be adapted to other non-variational existence problems.

This note revisits the inverse mean curvature flow in the 3-dimensional hyperbolic space. In particular, we show that the limiting shape is not necessarily round after scaling, thus resolving an inconsistency in the literature. The same conclusion is obtained for n-dimensional hyperbolic space as well.

We prove that any constant mean curvature embedded torus in the three dimensional sphere is axially symmetric, and use this to give a complete classification of such surfaces for any given value of the mean curvature.