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Recent progress on geometric analysis and Riemannian geometry: Mass-angular momentum inequalities, singular harmonic maps, and flows of stationary vacuum black holes

Presenter
October 24, 2024
Keywords:
  • mean curvature flow
  • Ricci flow
  • fully nonlinear flows
  • general relativity
  • mass
  • Ricci curvature
  • scalar curvature
  • sectional curvature
  • symmetry
  • Riemannian geometry
  • groups actions
  • minimal surfaces
  • stability
MSC:
  • 35-XX - Partial differential equations
  • 49-XX - Calculus of variations and optimal control
  • optimization
  • 53-XX - Differential geometry
  • 58-XX - Global analysis
  • analysis on manifolds
  • 83-XX - Relativity and gravitational theory
Abstract
We establish the conjectured mass-angular momentum inequality for multiple black holes, modulo the extreme black hole `no hair theorem'. More precisely it is shown that either there is a counterexample to black hole uniqueness, in the form of a regular axisymmetric stationary vacuum spacetime with an asymptotically flat end and multiple degenerate horizons which is `ADM stable', or the following statement holds. Complete, simply connected, maximal initial data sets for the Einstein equations with multiple ends that are either asymptotically flat or asymptotically cylindrical, admit an ADM mass lower bound given by the square root of total angular momentum, under the assumption of nonnegative energy density and axisymmetry. Moreover, equality is achieved in the mass lower bound only for a constant time slice of an extreme Kerr spacetime. The proof is based on a novel flow of singular harmonic maps with hyperbolic plane target, under which the renormalized harmonic energy is monotonically nonincreasing. Relevant properties of the flow are achieved through a refined asymptotic analysis of solutions to the harmonic map equations and their linearization. This is joint work with Qing Han, Gilbert Weinstein, and Jingang Xiong.