The Conformal Conjecture for asymptotically flat three-manifolds with boundary

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Let (N,h)(N,h) be a smooth asymptotically flat 3-manifold with compact, smooth, nonempty boundary Σ\Sigma, with hh extending smoothly to Σ\Sigma. Given ϵ>0\epsilon>0, there exists a smooth, positive function uu on NN and metric h0=u4hh_0=u^4h. Let Σ~\widetilde \Sigma be the outermost minimal area enclosure of Σ\Sigma with respect to h0h_0.

Conformal Conjecture. The function uu is harmonic with respect to hh and tends to 1 at infinity; in the metric h0h_0, the areas of Σ~\widetilde \Sigma and Σ\Sigma differ by at most ϵ\epsilon; and Σ~\widetilde \Sigma is disjoint from Σ\Sigma.

The third condition makes Σ~\widetilde \Sigma a smooth zero-mean-curvature surface in h0h_0. The conjecture is known in the spherically symmetric case and is needed for the arguments establishing the ZAS inequality.

References

Primary source

Hubert L. Bray and Jeffrey L. Jauregui, “A geometric theory of zero area singularities in general relativity”, arXiv:0909.0522 (2012).

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