The Li-Yau-Hamilton Estimate and the Yang-Mills Heat Equation on Manifolds with Boundary
The paper pursues two connected goals. Firstly, we establish the Li-Yau-Hamilton estimate for the heat equation on a manifold $M$ with nonempty boundary. Results of this kind are typically used to prove monotonicity formulas related to geometric flows. Secondly, we establish bounds for a solution $\nabla(t)$ of the Yang-Mills heat equation in a vector bundle over $M$. The Li-Yau-Hamilton estimate is utilized in the proofs. Our results imply that the curvature of $\nabla(t)$ does not blow up if the dimension of $M$ is less than 4 or if the initial energy of $\nabla(t)$ is sufficiently small.
The Hopf boundary point lemma for vector bundle sections
The paper establishes a version of the Hopf boundary point lemma for sections of a vector bundle over a manifold with boundary. This result may be viewed as a counterpart to the tensor maximum principle obtained by R. Hamilton in 1986. Potential applications include the study of various geometric flows and the construction of invariant sets for geometric boundary value problems.
On the development of functionals which satisfy a maximum principle
We present a systematic method for constructing functions, defined on the solutions of a higher order differential equationor weakly coupled system of differential equations, which satisfy a maximum principle. The construction is related to the construction of Lyapunov functions and to the theory of invariant sets. One can obtain various consequences from the resulting principle, such as a priori estimates, uniqueness of solutions, and comparison theorems