We consider an ancient solution g(·, t) of the Ricci flow on a compact surface that exists for t 2 (−1, T ) and becomes spherical at time t = T . We prove that the metric g(·, t) is either a family of contracting spheres, which is a type I ancient solution, or a King–Rosenau solution, which is a type II ancient solution.

We prove some half-space theorems for minimal surfaces in the Heisenberg group Nil3 and the Lie group Sol3 endowed with their standard left-invariant Riemannian metrics. If S is a properly immersed minimal surface in Nil3 that lies on one side of some entire minimal graph G, then S is the image of G by a vertical translation. If S is a properly immersed minimal surface in Sol3 that lies on one side of a special plane Et (see the discussion just before Theorem 1.5 for the definition of a special plane in Sol3), then S is the special plane Eu for some u 2 R.

Contrast to the hyperbolic mean curvature flows studied in [HKL], [LS], and [KW], a new hyperbolic curvature flow is proposed for convex hypersurfaces. This flow is most suited when the Gauss curvature is involved. The equation satisfied by the graph of the hypersurface under this flow gives rise to a new class of fully nonlinear Euclidean invariant hyperbolic equations.

In 1960s, Almgren initiated a program to find minimal hypersurfaces in compact manifolds using min-max method. This program was largely advanced by Pitts and Schoen-Simon in 1980s when the manifold has no boundary. In this paper, we finish this program for general compact manifold with nonempty boundary. As a result, we prove the existence of a smooth embedded minimal hypersurface with free boundary in any compact smooth Euclidean domain. An application of our general existence result combined with the work of Marques and Neves shows that for any compact Riemannian manifolds with nonnegative Ricci curvature and convex boundary, there exist infinitely many embedded minimal hypersurfaces with free boundary which are properly embedded.

LetMbe a compact Riemannian manifold of dimension n > 2. The k-curvature, for k = 1, 2, . . . , n, is defined as the k-th ele- mentary symmetric polynomial of the eigenvalues of the Schouten tenser. The k-Yamabe problem is to prove the existence of a con- formal metric whose k-curvature is a constant. When k = 1, it reduces to the well-known Yamabe problem. Under the assumption that the metric is admissible, the existence of solutions is known for the case k = 2, n = 4, for locally conformally flat manifolds and for the cases k > n/2. In this paper we prove the solvability of the k-Yamabe problem in the remaining cases k ≤ n/2, under the hypothesis that the problem is variational. This includes all of the cases k = 2 as well as the locally conformally flat case.