Search for: All records

A classic result of Shi and Tam states that a 2-sphere of positive Gauss and mean curvature bounding a compact 3-manifold with nonnegative scalar curvature must have total mean curvature not greater than that of the isometric embedding into Euclidean 3-space, with equality only for domains in this reference manifold. We generalize this result to 2-tori of Gauss curvature greater than $-<\#comment/>1$, which bound a compact 3-manifold having scalar curvature not less than $-<\#comment/>6$and at least one other boundary component satisfying a ‘trapping condition’. The conclusion is that the total weighted mean curvature is not greater than that of an isometric embedding into the Kottler manifold, with equality only for domains in this space. Examples are given to show that the assumption of a secondary boundary component cannot be removed. The result gives a positive mass theorem for the static Brown-York mass of tori, in analogy to the Shi-Tam positivity of the standard Brown-York mass, and represents the first such quasi-local mass positivity result for nonspherical surfaces. Furthermore, we prove a Penrose-type inequality in this setting. 

We define a new gauge independent quasi-local mass and energy, and show its relation to the Brown–York Hamilton–Jacobi analysis. A quasi-local proof of the positivity, based on spacetime harmonic functions, is given for admissible closed spacelike 2-surfaces which enclose an initial data set satisfying the dominant energy condition. Like the Wang-Yau mass, the new definition relies on isometric embeddings into Minkowski space, although our notion of admissibility is different from that of Wang and Yau. Rigidity is also established, in that vanishing energy implies that the 2-surface arises from an embedding into Minkowski space, and conversely the mass vanishes for any such surface. Furthermore, we show convergence to the ADM mass at spatial infinity, and provide the equation associated with optimal isometric embedding.