Quasilocal mass in general relativity is a notion defined for a closed space like 2-surface in spacetime. In this note, we explain the definition in [23] and [24] from a mathematical viewpoint, emphasizing the connection to differential geometry and nonlinear partial differential equations. We also discuss a minimax interpretation of the definition and compare with other notions of quasilocal mass.

We discuss a sharp lower bound for the first positive eigenvalue of the sublaplacian on a closed, strictly pseudoconvex pseudohermitian manifold of dimension 2m + 1 ≥ 5. We prove that the equality holds iff the manifold is equivalent to the CR sphere up to a scaling. For this purpose, we establish an Obata-type theorem in CR geometry that characterizes the CR sphere in terms of a nonzero function satisfying a certain overdetermined system. Similar results are proved in dimension 3 under an additional condition.

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We give a holomorphic extension result for continuous CR functions on a non-generic CR submanifold$N$of ℂ^{$n$}to complex transversal wedges with edges containing$N$. We show that given any$v$∈ℂ^{$n$}∖($T$_{$p$}$N$+$iT$_{$p$}$N$), there exists a wedge of direction$v$whose edge contains a neighborhood of$p$in$N$, such that any continuous CR function defined locally near$p$extends holomorphically to that wedge.

We show that a family $\mathcal{F}$ of analytic functions in the unit disk ${\mathbb{D}}$ all of whose zeros have multiplicity at least$k$and which satisfy a condition of the form $$f^n(z)f^{(k)}(xz)\ne1$$ for all $z\in{\mathbb{D}}$ and $f\in\mathcal{F}$ (where$n$≥3,$k$≥1 and 0<|$x$|≤1) is normal at the origin. The proof relies on a modification of Nevanlinna theory in combination with the Zalcman–Pang rescaling method. Furthermore we prove the corresponding Picard-type theorem for entire functions and some generalizations.