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The definition of quasi-local mass for a bounded space-like region in space-time is essential in several major unsettled roblems in general relativity. The quasi-local mass is expected to be a type of flux integral on the boundary two-surface $ \sum = \partial \Omega $ and should be independent of whichever space-like region $\sum $ bounds. An important idea which is related to the Hamiltonian formulation of general relativity is to consider a reference surface in a flat ambient space with the same first fundamental form and derive the quasi-local mass from the difference of the extrinsic geometries. This approach has be taken by Brown-York [4][5] and Liu-Yau [16][17] (see also related works [12], [15], [6], [14], [3], [9], [28], [32]) to define such notions using the isometric embedding theorem into the Euclidean three space. However, there exist surfaces in the Minkowski space whose quasilocal mass is strictly positive [19]. It appears that the momentum information needs to accounted for to reconcile the difference. In order to fully capture this information, we use isometric embeddings into the Minkowski space as references. In this article, we first prove an existence and uniqueness theorem for such isometric embeddings. We then solve the boundary value problem for Jang’s [13] equation as a procedure to recognize such a surface in the Minkowski space. In doing so, we discover new expression of quasi-local mass for a large class of “admissible” surfaces (see Theorem A and Remark 1.1). The new mass is positive when the ambient space-time satisfies the dominant energy condition and vanishes on surfaces in the Minkowski space. It also has the nice asymptotic behavior at spatial infinity and null infinity. Some of these results were announced in [29].

We prove global rigidity for compact hyperbolic and spherical cone-3-manifolds with cone-angles ≤ π (which are not Seifert fibered in the spherical case), furthermore for a class of hyperbolic cone-3-manifolds of finite volume with cone-angles ≤ π, possibly with boundary consisting of totally geodesic hyperbolic turnovers.To that end we first generalize the local rigidity result contained in [Wei] to the setting of hyperbolic cone-3-manifolds of finite volume as above. We then use the techniques developed in [BLP] to deform the cone-manifold structure to a complete non-singular or a geometric orbifold structure, where global rigidity holds due to Mostow-Prasad rigidity, cf. [Mos], [Pra], in the hyperbolic case,resp. [deR], cf. also [Rot], in the spherical case. This strategy has already been implemented successfully by [Koj] in the compact hyperbolic case if the singular locus is a link using HodgsonKerckhoff local rigidity, cf. [HK].

We investigate the Chern–Ricci flow, an evolution equation of Hermitian metrics generalizing the Kähler–Ricci flow, on elliptic bundles over a Riemann surface of genus greater than one. We show that, starting at any Gauduchon metric, the flow collapses the elliptic fibers and the metrics converge to the pullback of a Kähler–Einstein metric from the base. Some of our estimates are new even for the Kähler–Ricci flow. A consequence of our result is that, on every minimal non-Kähler surface of Kodaira dimension one, the Chern–Ricci flow converges in the sense of Gromov–Hausdorff to an orbifold Kähler–Einstein metric on a Riemann surface.

If an (n + 2)-dimensional Lorentzian manifold is indecomposable, but non-irreducible, then its holonomy algebra is contained in the parabolic algebra (R⊕so(n)).Rn. We show that its projection onto so(n) is the holonomy algebra of a Riemannian manifold. This leads to a classification of Lorentzian holonomy groups and implies that the holonomy group of an indecomposable Lorentzian spin manifold with parallel spinor equals to G . Rn where G is a product of SU(p), Sp(q), G2 or Spin(7).