In this paper we develop methods to extend the minimal hypersurface approach to positive scalar curvature problems to all dimensions. This includes a proof of the positive mass theorem in all dimensions without a spin assumption. It also includes statements about the structure of compact manifolds of positive scalar curvature extending the work of\cite {sy1} to all dimensions. The technical work in this paper is to construct minimal slicings and associated weight functions in the presence of small singular sets and to show that the singular sets do not become too large in the lower dimensional slices. It is shown that the singular set in any slice is a closed set with Hausdorff codimension at least three. In particular for arguments which involve slicing down to dimension 1 or 1 the method is successful. The arguments can be viewed as an extension of the minimal hypersurface regularity theory to this setting of minimal slicings.

We study minimizers of the functionalwhere $B_{1}^{{\mathchoice {\raise .17ex\hbox {$\scriptstyle +$}} {\raise .17ex\hbox {$\scriptstyle +$}} {\raise .1ex\hbox {$\scriptscriptstyle +$}} {\scriptscriptstyle +}}}=\{x\in B_{1}: x_{1}>0\}$ ,$u$=0 on {$x$∈$B$_{1}:$x$_{1}=0}, $\lambda^{{\mathchoice {\raise .17ex\hbox {$\scriptstyle \pm $}} {\raise .17ex\hbox {$\scriptstyle \pm $}} {\raise .1ex\hbox {$\scriptscriptstyle \pm $}} {\scriptscriptstyle \pm }}}$ are two positive constants and 0<$p$<1. In two dimensions, we prove that the free boundary is a uniform$C$^{1}graph up to the flat part of the fixed boundary and also that two-phase points cannot occur on this part of the fixed boundary. Here, the free boundary refers to the union of the boundaries of the sets {$x$:±$u$($x$)>0}.

We study the Plateau Problem of finding an area minimizing disk bounding a given Jordan curve in Alexandrov spaces with curvature ≥ κ. These are complete metric spaces with a lower curvature bound given in terms of triangle comparison. Imposing an additional condition that is satisfied by all Alexandrov spaces according to a conjecture of Perel’man, we develop a harmonic map theory from two dimensional domains into these spaces. In particular, we show that the solution to the Dirichlet problem from a disk is H¨older continuous in the interior and continuous up to the boundary. Using this theory, we solve the Plateau Problem in this setting generalizing classical results in Euclidean space (due to J. Douglas and T. Rado) and in Riemannian manifolds (due to C.B. Morrey).

We prove that a compact Riemannian 3-symmetric space is globally symmetric if every Jacobi field along a geodesic vanishing at two points is the restriction to that geodesic of a Killing field induced by the isotropy action or, in particular, if the isotropy action is variationally complete.

Let T be the Teichm¨uller space of marked genus g, n punctured Riemann surfaces with its bordification T the augmented Teichm ¨uller space of marked Riemann surfaces with nodes, [Abi77,Ber74]. Provided with the WP metric, T is a complete CAT(0) metric space, [DW03,Wol03, Yam04]. An invariant of a marked hyperbolic structure is the length ℓ of the geodesic α in a free homotopy class. A basic feature of Teichm¨uller theory is the interplay of two-dimensional hyperbolic geometry, Weil-Petersson (WP) geometry and the behavior of geodesic-length functions. Our goal is to develop an understanding of the intrinsic local WP geometry through a study of the gradient and Hessian of geodesic-length functions. Considerations include expansions for the WP pairing of gradients, expansions for the Hessian and covariant derivative, comparability models for the WP metric, as well as the behavior of WP geodesics, including a description of the Alexandrov tangent cone at the augmentation. Approximations and applications for geodesics close to the augmentation are developed. An application for fixed points of group actions is described. Bounding configurations and functions on the hyperbolic plane is basic to our approach. Considerations include analyzing the orbit of a discrete group of isometries and bounding sums of the inverse square exponential-distance.