We show that the first Johnson subgroup of the mapping class group of a surface  of genus greater than 1 acts ergodically on the moduli space of representations of π1() in SU2. Our proof relies on a local description of the latter space around the trivial representation and on the Taylor expansion of trace functions.

We introduce a natural generalization of marginally outer trapped surfaces, called immersed marginally outer trapped surfaces, and prove that three-dimensional asymptotically flat initial data sets either contain such surfaces or are diffeomorphic to R^3. We establish a generalization of the Penrose singularity theorem which shows that the presence of an immersed marginally outer trapped surface generically implies the null geodesic incompleteness of any spacetime that satisfies the null energy condition and which admits a non-compact Cauchy surface. Taken together,these results can be viewed as an initial data version of the Gannon-Lee singularity theorem. The first result is a non-timesymmetric version of a theorem ofMeeks-Simon-Yau which implies that every asymptotically flat Riemannian 3-manifold that is not diffeomorphic to R^3 contains an embedded stable minimal surface. We also obtain an initial data version of the spacetime principle of topological censorship. Under physically natural assumptions, a 3-dimensional asymptotically flat initial data set with marginally outer trapped boundary and no immersed marginally outer trapped surfaces in its interior is diffeomorphic to R^3 minus a finite number of open balls. An extension to higher dimensions is also discussed.

We give a shorter proof of the existence of nontrivial closed minimal hypersurfaces in closed smooth (n + 1)-dimensional Riemannian manifolds, a theorem proved first by Pitts for 2 ≤ n ≤ 5 and extended later by Schoen and Simon to any n.

Strongly pseudoconvex CR manifolds are boundaries of Stein varieties with isolated normal singularities.We prove that any nonconstant CR morphism between two (2n.1)-dimensional strongly pseudoconvex CR manifolds lying in an n-dimensional Stein variety with isolated singularities are necessarily a CR biholomorphism. As a corollary, we prove that any nonconstant self map of (2n . 1)-dimensional strongly pseudoconvex CR manifold is a CR automorphism. We also prove that a finite ′etale covering map between two resolutions of isolated normal singularities must be an isomorphism.

We show that a properly immersed minimal hypersurface in M × R+ equals some M×{c} when M is a complete, recurrent ndimensional Riemannian manifold with bounded curvature. If on the other hand,M is not necessarily recurrent but has nonnegative Ricci curvature with curvature bounded below, the same result holds for any positive entire minimal graph over M.