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.

In this paper, we establish an analytic foundation for a fully non-linear equation 2 1 = f on manifolds with metrics of positive scalar curvature and apply it to give a (rough) classification of such manifolds. A crucial point is a simple observation that this equation is a degenerate elliptic equation without any condition on the sign of f and it is elliptic not only for f > 0 but also for f < 0. By defining a Yamabe constant Y2,1 with respect to this equation, we show that a manifold with metrics of positive scalar curvature admits a conformal metric of positive scalar curvature and positive 2-scalar curvature if and only if Y2,1 > 0. We give a complete solution for the corresponding Yamabe problem. Namely, let g0 be a positive scalar curvature metric, then in its conformal class there is a conformal metric with 2(g) = 1(g), for some constant . Using these analytic results, we give a rough classification of the space of manifolds with metrics of positive scalar curvature.

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.

We introduce new finite-dimensional cohomologies on symplectic manifolds. Each exhibits Lefschetz decomposition and contains a unique harmonic representative within each class. Associated with each cohomology is a primitive cohomology defined purely on the space of primitive forms. We identify the dual currents of lagrangians and more generally coisotropic submanifolds with elements of a primitive cohomology, which dualizes to a homology on coisotropic chains.

In 1997, J. Jost [27] and F. H. Lin [39], independently proved that every energy minimizing harmonic map from an Alexandrov space with curvature bounded from below to an Alexandrov space with non-positive curvature is locally H¨older continuous. In [39], F. H. Lin proposed a challenge problem: Can the H¨older continuity be improved to Lipschitz continuity? J. Jost also asked a similar problem about Lipschitz regularity of harmonic maps between singular spaces (see Page 38 in [28]). The main theorem of this paper gives a complete resolution to it.