We show that the pre-order defined on the category of contact manifolds by arbitrary symplectic cobordisms is considerably less rigid than its counterparts for exact or Stein cobordisms: in particular, we exhibit large new classes of contact 3-manifolds which are symplectically cobordant to something overtwisted, or to the tight 3-sphere, or which admit symplectic caps containing symplectically embedded spheres with vanishing self-intersection. These constructions imply new and simplified proofs of several recent results involving fillability, planarity, and non-separating contact type embeddings. The cobordisms are built from symplectic handles of the form Σ × D and Σ × [−1, 1] × S1, which have symplectic cores and can be attached to contact 3-manifolds along sufficiently large neighborhoods of transverse links and preLagrangian tori. We also sketch a construction of J-holomorphic foliations in these cobordisms and formulate a conjecture regarding maps induced on Embedded Contact Homology with twisted coefficients.

We prove that an extreme Kerr initial data set is a unique absolute minimum of the total mass in a (physically relevant) class of vacuum, maximal, asymptotically flat, axisymmetric data for Einstein equations with fixed angular momentum. These data represent non-stationary, axially symmetric black holes. As a consequence, we obtain that any data in this class satisfy the inequality √J ≤ m, where m and J are the total mass and angular momentum of spacetime.

A longstanding question in the dual Brunn–Minkowski theory is “What are the dual analogues of Federer’s curvature measures for convex bodies?” The answer to this is provided. This leads naturally to dual versions of Minkowski-type problems: What are necessary and sufficient conditions for a Borel measure to be a dual curvature measure of a convex body? Sufficient conditions, involving measure concentration, are established for the existence of solutions to these problems.

Riemannian geometry is characterized, and research is oriented towards and shaped by concepts (geodesics, connections, curvature,...) and objectives, in particular to understand certain classes of (compact) Riemannian manifolds defined by curvature conditions (constant or positive or negative curvature,...). By way of contrast, geometric analysis is a perhaps somewhat less systematic collection of techniques, for solving extremal problems naturally arising in geometry and for investigating and characterizing their solutions. It turns out that the two fields complement each other very well; geometric analysis offers tools for solving difficult problems in geometry, and Riemannian geometry stimulates progress in geometric analysis by setting ambitious goals.

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In this paper, we introduce the first Aeppli-Chern class for complex manifolds and show that the $(1,1)$- component of the curvature $2$-form of the Levi-Civita connection on the anti-canonical line bundle represents this class. We systematically investigate the relationship between a variety of Ricci curvatures on Hermitian manifolds and the background Riemannian manifolds. Moreover, we study non-K\"ahler Calabi-Yau manifolds by using the first Aeppli-Chern class and the Levi-Civita Ricci-flat metrics. In particular, we construct explicit Levi-Civita Ricci-flat metrics on Hopf manifolds $\S^{2n-1}\times \S^1$. We also construct a smooth family of Gauduchon metrics on a compact Hermitian manifold such that the metrics are in the same first Aeppli-Chern class, and their first Chern-Ricci curvatures are the same and nonnegative, but their Riemannian scalar curvatures are constant and vary smoothly between negative infinity and a positive number. In particular, it shows that Hermitian manifolds with nonnegative first Chern class can admit Hermitian metrics with strictly negative Riemannian scalar curvature.

It was in the early nineteen thirties that Douglas and Radd solved the Plateau problem for a rectifiable Jordan curve in Euclidean space. The minimal surfaces that they obtained are realized by conformal harmonic maps from the unit disk. In 1948 Morrey generalized the theorem of Douglas and Radd to minimal surfaces in a homogeneously regular Riemannian manifold. In both cases the solutions are defective as they may possess branch points. It was not until 1968 that Osserman [-24] was able to prove that interior branch points do not exist on the Douglas-Radd-Morrey solution.(Osserman's theorem in this full generality was proved by Alt [-2, 3] and Gulliver [8].) If the Jordan curve is real analytic, Gulliver and Lesley [9] showed that the solution surface is free of branch points even on its boundary. Hence, at least in this case, we know that the Douglas-Radd-Morrey solution is an immersion and represents a

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An expansion is developed for the Weil-Petersson Riemann curvature tensor in the thin region of the Teichm¨uller and moduli spaces. The tensor is evaluated on the gradients of geodesiclengths for disjoint geodesics. A precise lower bound for sectional curvature in terms of the surface systole is presented. The curvature tensor expansion is applied to establish continuity properties at the frontier strata of the augmented Teichm¨uller space. The curvature tensor has the asymptotic product structure already observed for the metric and covariant derivative. The product structure is combined with the earlier negative sectional curvature results to establish a classification of asymptotic flats. Furthermore, tangent subspaces of more than half the dimension of Teichm¨uller space contain sections with a definite amount of negative curvature. Proofs combine estimates for uniformization group exponential-distance sums and potential theory bounds.

In this survey, we discuss some recent results on free boundary minimal surfaces in the Euclidean unit-ball. The subject has been a very active field of research in the past few years due to the seminal work of Fraser and Schoen on the extremal Steklov eigenvalue problem. We review several different techniques of constructing examples of embedded free boundary minimal surfaces in the unit ball. Next, we discuss some uniqueness results for free boundary minimal disks and the conjecture about the uniqueness of critical catenoid. We also discuss several Morse index estimates for free boundary minimal surfaces. Moreover, we describe estimates for the first Steklov eigenvalue on such free boundary minimal surfaces and various smooth compactness results. Finally, we mention some sharp area bounds for free boundary minimal submanifolds and related questions.