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# Positive Mass Theorem on Manifolds admitting Corners along a Hypersurface

## 1 Introduction and Statement of Results

The well-known Positive Mass Theorem in general relativity was first proved by R. Schoen and S.T. Yau in  for smooth asymptotically flat manifolds with non-negative scalar curvature. It is interesting to know on what kind of non-smooth Riemannian manifolds their techniques and results can be generalized. In this paper we study this question in a special setting where the metric fails to be $`C^1`$ across a hypersurface.

Let $`n3`$ be a dimension for which the classical PMT  holds. Let $`\alpha (0,1)`$ be a fixed number and $`M`$ be an oriented $`n`$-dimensional smooth differentiable manifold with no boundary. We assume that there exists a compact domain $`\mathrm{\Omega }M`$ so that $`M\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is diffeomorphic to $`^n`$ minus a ball and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }=\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is a smooth hypersurface in M.

###### Definition 1.

A metric $`𝒢`$ admitting corners along $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is defined to be a pair of $`(g_{},g_+)`$, where $`g_{}`$ and $`g_+`$ are $`C_{loc}^{2,\alpha }`$ metrics on $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`M\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ so that they are $`C^2`$ up to the boundary and they induce the same metric on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$.

###### Definition 2.

Given $`𝒢=(g_{},g_+)`$, we say $`𝒢`$ is asymptotically flat if the manifold $`(M\mathrm{\Omega },g_+)`$ is asymptotically flat in the usual sense (see ).

###### Definition 3.

The mass of $`𝒢=(g_{},g_+)`$ is defined to be the mass of $`g_+`$ (see ) whenever the later exits.

One of our main motivation to study such a pair $`𝒢=(g_{},g_+)`$ is its implicit relation with Bartnik’s quasi-local mass of the bounded Riemannian domain $`(\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }},g_{})`$. It is generally conjectured that there exists a $`g_+`$ on $`M\mathrm{\Omega }`$ so that $`𝒢=(g_{},g_+)`$ is a minimal mass extension of $`(\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }},g_{})`$ in the sense of .

Under a geometric boundary condition which originated in , we prove the following Positive Mass Theorem for $`𝒢`$.

###### Theorem 1.

Let $`𝒢=(g_{},g_+)`$ be an asymptotically flat metric admitting corners along $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. Suppose that the scalar curvature of $`g_{}`$, $`g_+`$ is non-negative in $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, $`M\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$, and

$$H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_{})H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_+),(\mathrm{H})$$

where $`H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_{})`$ and $`H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_+)`$ represent the mean curvature of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ in $`(\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }},g_{})`$ and $`(M\mathrm{\Omega },g_+)`$ with respect to unit normal vectors pointing to the unbounded region. Then the mass of $`𝒢`$ is non-negative. Furthermore, if $`H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_{})>H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_+)`$ at some point on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, $`𝒢`$ has a strict positive mass.

###### Remark 1.

Under our sign convention for the mean curvature, we have that $`H(S^{n1},g_o)=n1`$, where $`S^{n1}`$ is the unit sphere in $`^n`$ and $`g_o`$ is the Euclidean metric.

One direct corollary of this theorem is that the boundary behavior of a metric $`g`$ on $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ imposes subtle restriction on the scalar curvature of $`g`$ inside $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. For instance, we have that

###### Corollary 1.1.

There does not exist a metric $`g`$ with non-negative scalar curvature on a standard ball $`\overline{B}^n`$ so that $`B`$ is isometric to $`S^{n1}`$ and the mean curvature of $`B`$ in $`(\overline{B},g)`$ is greater but not equal to $`n1`$.

Based on the work of H. Bray and F. Finster , we have a rigidity characterization of $`𝒢`$ when its mass is zero.

###### Theorem 2.

Let $`n=3`$ and $`g_{},g_+`$ satisfy all the assumptions in Theorem 1. If $`g_{}`$ and $`g_+`$ are at least $`C_{loc}^{3,\alpha }`$, then the mass of $`g_+`$ being zero implies that $`g_{}`$ and $`g_+`$ are flat away from $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and they induce the same second fundamental form on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. Hence, $`(\mathrm{\Omega },g_{})`$ and $`(M\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }},g_+)`$ together can be isometrically identified with the Euclidean space $`(^3,g_o)`$.

To illustrate the relevance of Theorem 2 to the quasi-local mass of a bounded Riemannian domain, we mention the following corollary.

###### Corollary 1.2.

Let $`(M^3,g)`$ be a manifold with non-negative scalar curvature, possibly with boundary. Let $`g_\sigma `$ be a metric on $`S^2`$ so that there exist two isometric embeddings $`\varphi _1:(S^2,g_\sigma )(^3,g_o)`$ and $`\varphi _2:(S^2,g_\sigma )(M^3,g)`$, where $`\varphi _1(S^2),\varphi _2(S^2)`$ each bounds a compact region $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1,\mathrm{\Omega }_2`$ in $`^3`$, $`M^3`$ that has connected boundary. Then, if

$$H(\varphi _2(S^2),g)H(\varphi _1(S^2),g_o),$$

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_2`$ is isometric to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1`$. In particular, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_2`$ has trivial topology.

###### Remark 2.

If we replace $`S^2`$ by an arbitrary compact surface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_g`$ with genus $`g1`$, under the same assumption, our argument still works to show that the region bounded by $`\varphi _2(\mathrm{\Sigma }_g)`$ is flat.

## 2 Explanation of condition (H)

In this section we give a motivation for the geometric boundary condition (H). One will see that it can be interpreted as a statement that the scalar curvature of $`𝒢`$ is distributionally non-negative across $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$.

Let $`g`$ be a $`C^2`$ metric in a tubular neighborhood of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and $`\nu `$ be a unit normal vector field to $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. Let $`K`$ be the Gaussian curvature of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ with respect to the induced metric $`g|_\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and $`R`$ be the scalar curvature of $`g`$. Taking trace of the Gauss equation, we have that

$$2K=R2Ric(\nu ,\nu )+H^2|A|^2,$$
(1)
where $`Ric(\nu ,\nu )`$ is the Ricci curvature of $`g`$ along $`\nu `$, $`H`$ and $`A`$ are the mean curvature and the second fundamental form of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$.

Assuming that $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ evolves with speed $`\nu `$, we have the following evolution formula of the mean curvature

$$D_\nu H=Ric(\nu ,\nu )|A|^2.$$
(2)
It follows from (1) and (2) that

$$R=2K(|A|^2+H^2)2D_\nu H,$$
(3)
which suggests that $`D_\nu H`$ plays a dominant role in determining the sign of $`R`$ if $`K,H`$ and $`A`$ are known to be bounded. In particular, for a metric $`𝒢=(g_{},g_+)`$ with $`H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_{})>H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_+)`$, the scalar curvature of $`𝒢`$ across $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ looks like a positive Dirac-Delta function with support in $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. Hence, the spirit of Theorem 1 is that PMT still holds even if the scalar curvature is only assumed to be distributionally non-negative across $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$.

###### Remark 3.

The geometric boundary condition (H) was first introduced by R. Bartnik in , where he suggested the static metric extension conjecture for a bounded domain in a time-symmetric initial data set.

## 3 Smoothing $`𝒢`$ across $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$

Given $`𝒢=(g_{},g_+)`$ on $`M`$, we want to approximate $`𝒢`$ by metrics which are $`C^2`$ across $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$.

First, we use the Gaussian coordinates of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ to modify the differential structure on $`M`$ so that $`𝒢`$ becomes a continuous metric across $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. Let $`U_{}^{2ϵ}`$ be a $`2ϵ`$-tubular neighborhood of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ in $`(\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }},g_{})`$ for some $`ϵ>0`$. Let

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_{}:\mathrm{\Sigma }\times (2ϵ,0]U_{}^{2ϵ}$$

be a diffeomorphism so that the pull back metric $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{}^{}(g_{})`$ has the form $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{}^{}(g_{})=g_{}^{}{}_{ij}{}^{}(x,t)dx^idx^j+dt^2,`$ where $`t`$ is the coordinate for $`(2ϵ,0]`$, $`(x^1,\mathrm{},x^{n1})`$ are local coordinates for $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and $`i,j`$ runs through $`1,\mathrm{},n1`$. Similarly, we have $`\mathrm{\Phi }_+:\mathrm{\Sigma }\times [0,2ϵ)U_+^{2ϵ},`$ where $`U_+^{2ϵ}`$ is a 2$`ϵ`$-tubular neighborhood of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ in $`(M\mathrm{\Omega },g_+)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_+^{}(g_+)=g_{+}^{}{}_{ij}{}^{}(x,t)dx^idx^j+dt^2.`$ Identifying $`U=U_{}^{2ϵ}U_+^{2ϵ}`$ with $`\mathrm{\Sigma }\times (2ϵ,2ϵ)`$, we define $`\stackrel{~}{M}`$ to be a possibly new differentiable manifold with the background topological space $`M`$ and the differential structure determined by the open covering $`\{\mathrm{\Omega },M\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }},U\}`$. Since $`g_{}|_\mathrm{\Sigma }=g_+|_\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, $`𝒢`$ becomes a continuous metric $`g`$ on $`\stackrel{~}{M}`$. Inside $`U=\mathrm{\Sigma }\times (2ϵ,2ϵ)`$, we have that

$$g=g_{ij}(x,t)dx^idx^j+dt^2,$$
(4)
where $`g_{ij}(x,t)=g_{}^{}{}_{ij}{}^{}(x,t)`$ when $`t0`$ and $`g_{ij}(x,t)=g_{+}^{}{}_{ij}{}^{}(x,t)`$ when $`t0`$.

Second, we mollify the metric $`g`$ inside $`U`$. Let $`i\{0,1,2\}`$, we define $`𝒮^i(\mathrm{\Sigma })`$ to be the Banach space of $`C^i`$ symmetric $`(0,2)`$ tensors on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ equipped with the usual $`C^i`$ norm and $`^i(\mathrm{\Sigma })`$ to be the open and convex subset of $`𝒮^i(\mathrm{\Sigma })`$ consisting of $`C^i`$ metrics. By (4) we have a well defined path in each $`^i(\mathrm{\Sigma })`$,

$$\gamma :(2ϵ,2ϵ)^2(\mathrm{\Sigma })^1(\mathrm{\Sigma })^0(\mathrm{\Sigma })$$
(5)
where

$$\gamma (t)=g_{ij}(x,t)dx^idx^j.$$
(6)
By assumption, $`\gamma `$ is a continuous path in $`^2(\mathrm{\Sigma })`$ and a piecewise $`C^1`$ path in $`^1(\mathrm{\Sigma })`$. Hence, there exists $`L>0`$ depending only on $`𝒢`$ such that

$$\gamma (t)\gamma (s)_{^1(\mathrm{\Sigma })}L|ts|,s,t[\frac{3}{2}ϵ,\frac{3}{2}ϵ].$$
(7)
We choose $`\varphi (t)C_{c}^{}{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{}}([1,1])`$ to be a standard mollifier on $`^1`$ such that

$$0\varphi 1\mathrm{and}_1^1\varphi (t)𝑑t=1.$$
(8)
Let $`\sigma (t)C_{c}^{}{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{}}([\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2}])`$ be anther cut-off function such that

$$\{\begin{array}{cc}0\sigma (t)\frac{1}{100}\hfill & t^1\hfill \\ \sigma (t)=\frac{1}{100}\hfill & |t|<\frac{1}{4}\hfill \\ 0<\sigma (t)\frac{1}{100}\hfill & \frac{1}{4}<|t|<\frac{1}{2}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(9)
Given any $`0<\delta ϵ`$, let

$$\sigma _\delta (t)=\delta ^2\sigma (\frac{t}{\delta })$$
(10)
and we define

$`\gamma _\delta (s)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _^1}\gamma (s\sigma _\delta (s)t)\varphi (t)𝑑t,s(ϵ,ϵ)`$ (13)
$`=`$ $`\{\begin{array}{cc}_^1\gamma (t)\left(\frac{1}{\sigma _\delta (s)}\varphi (\frac{st}{\sigma _\delta (s)})\right)𝑑t,\hfill & \sigma _\delta (s)>0\hfill \\ \gamma (s),\hfill & \sigma _\delta (s)=0,\hfill \end{array}`$
where the integral takes place in $`𝒮^0(\mathrm{\Sigma })`$. By the convexity of $`^0(\mathrm{\Sigma })`$ in $`𝒮^0(\mathrm{\Sigma })`$, $`\gamma _\delta `$ is a path in $`^0(\mathrm{\Sigma })`$. We have the following elementary lemmas concerning the property of $`\gamma _\delta `$ and its relation with $`\gamma `$.

###### Lemma 3.1.

$`\gamma _\delta (s)`$ is a $`C^2`$ path in $`^0(\mathrm{\Sigma })`$ and a $`C^1`$ path in $`^1(\mathrm{\Sigma })`$.

*Proof*: Let $`i\{1,2\}`$. The fact that $`\gamma :(ϵ,ϵ)^{2i}(\mathrm{\Sigma })`$ is $`C^i`$ away from 0 implies that $`\gamma _\delta :(ϵ,ϵ)^{2i}(\mathrm{\Sigma })`$ is $`C^i`$ away from $`[\frac{\delta ^2}{100},\frac{\delta ^2}{100}]`$. For $`s(\frac{\delta }{4},\frac{\delta }{4})`$, $`\sigma _\delta (s)=\frac{\delta ^2}{100}`$ and (13) turns into

$$\gamma _\delta (s)=_^1\gamma (t)\left(\frac{1}{(\frac{\delta ^2}{100})}\varphi (\frac{st}{(\frac{\delta ^2}{100})})\right)𝑑t,$$
(14)
which is the standard mollification of $`\gamma `$ by $`\varphi `$ with a constant scaling factor $`\frac{\delta ^2}{100}`$. Hence, $`\gamma _\delta (s):(ϵ,ϵ)^{2i}(\mathrm{\Sigma })`$ is smooth in $`(\frac{\delta }{4},\frac{\delta }{4})`$. $`\mathrm{}`$

###### Lemma 3.2.

$`\gamma _\delta (s)`$ is a $`C^0`$ path in $`^2(\mathrm{\Sigma })`$ which is uniformly close to $`\gamma `$ and agrees with $`\gamma `$ outside $`(\frac{\delta }{2},\frac{\delta }{2})`$.

*Proof*: The continuity of $`\gamma _\delta :(ϵ,ϵ)^2(\mathrm{\Sigma })`$ follows directly from that of $`\gamma `$. The estimate

$`\gamma _\delta (s)\gamma (s)_{^2(\mathrm{\Sigma })}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _^1}\left(\gamma (s\sigma _\delta (s)t)\gamma (s)\right)\varphi (t)𝑑t_{^2(\mathrm{\Sigma })}`$ (15)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle _^1}\gamma (s\sigma _\delta (s)t)\gamma (s)_{^2(\mathrm{\Sigma })}\varphi (t)𝑑t`$
shows it is uniformly close to $`\gamma `$. Finally, $`\sigma _\delta (s)=0`$ for $`|s|>\frac{\delta }{2}`$ implies

$$\gamma _\delta (s)=_^1\gamma (s)\varphi (t)𝑑t=\gamma (s).$$
(16)
$`\mathrm{}`$

###### Lemma 3.3.

$`\gamma _\delta (s)\gamma (s)_{^0(\mathrm{\Sigma })}L\delta ^2,\mathrm{for}s(ϵ,ϵ)`$.

*Proof*: It follows from (7) that

$`\gamma _\delta (s)\gamma (s)_{^0(\mathrm{\Sigma })}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle _^1}\gamma (s\sigma _\delta (s)t)\gamma (s)_{^0(\mathrm{\Sigma })}\varphi (t)𝑑t`$ (17)
$``$ $`L\delta ^2.`$
$`\mathrm{}`$

Now we define

$$g_\delta =\{\begin{array}{cc}\gamma _\delta (t)+dt^2,\hfill & (x,t)\mathrm{\Sigma }\times (ϵ,ϵ)\hfill \\ g,\hfill & (x,t)\mathrm{\Sigma }\times (ϵ,ϵ).\hfill \end{array}$$
(18)
Lemma 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3 imply that $`g_\delta `$ is a globally $`C^2`$ metric on $`\stackrel{~}{M}`$ which agrees with $`g`$ outside a strip region $`\mathrm{\Sigma }\times (\frac{\delta }{2},\frac{\delta }{2})`$ and is uniformly close to $`g`$ in $`C^0`$ topology.

Next, we proceed to estimate the scalar curvature of $`g_\delta `$. We use the notations defined in section $`2`$ with a lower index $`\delta `$ to denote the corresponding quantities of $`g_\delta `$. By (18), the vector field $`\frac{}{t}`$ is perpendicular to the slice $`\mathrm{\Sigma }\times \{t\}`$ for each $`t(ϵ,ϵ)`$. Hence, inside $`\mathrm{\Sigma }\times (ϵ,ϵ)`$, (3) shows that

$$R_\delta (x,t)=2K_\delta (x,t)(|A_\delta (x,t)|^2+H_\delta (x,t)^2)2\frac{}{t}H_\delta (x,t).$$
(19)
We will estimate each term on the right of (19). First we note that $`K_\delta (x,t)`$ is determined only by $`\gamma _\delta (t)`$, Lemma 3.2 then implies that $`K_\delta (x,t)`$ is bounded by constants depending only on $`\gamma :(ϵ,ϵ)^2(\mathrm{\Sigma })`$.

To estimate $`A_\delta (x,t)`$ and $`H_\delta (x,t)`$, we compute the first order derivative of $`\gamma _\delta :(ϵ,ϵ)^0(\mathrm{\Sigma })`$ because of the definition

$$A_{\delta }^{}{}_{ij}{}^{}(x,t)=<\frac{}{x^j},_{\frac{}{x^i}}^\delta _t>=\frac{1}{2}\frac{}{t}\gamma _{\delta }^{}{}_{ij}{}^{}(x,t).$$
(20)
By (13) we have that

$$\frac{}{t}\gamma _{\delta }^{}{}_{ij}{}^{}(x,t)=\frac{}{t}_^1\gamma _{ij}(t\sigma _\delta (t)s)\varphi (s)𝑑s.$$
(21)
When $`|t|>\frac{\delta ^2}{100}`$, (21) gives that

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\gamma _{\delta }^{}{}_{ij}{}^{}(x,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _^1}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}\{\gamma _{ij}(t\sigma _\delta (t)s)\}\varphi (s)𝑑s`$ (22)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _^1}\gamma _{ij}^{}(t\sigma _\delta (t)s)\{1s\delta \sigma ^{}({\displaystyle \frac{t}{\delta }})\}\varphi (s)𝑑s.`$
When $`|t|<\frac{\delta }{4}`$, (14) implies that

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\gamma _{\delta }^{}{}_{ij}{}^{}(x,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}{\displaystyle _^1}\gamma _{ij}(s)\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{100}{\delta ^2}}\varphi ({\displaystyle \frac{100(ts)}{\delta ^2}})\right\}𝑑s`$ (23)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _^1}\gamma _{ij}(s){\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{100}{\delta ^2}}\varphi ({\displaystyle \frac{100(ts)}{\delta ^2}})\right\}𝑑s`$
$`=`$ $`(1){\displaystyle _^1}\gamma _{ij}(s){\displaystyle \frac{d}{ds}}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{100}{\delta ^2}}\varphi ({\displaystyle \frac{100(ts)}{\delta ^2}})\right\}𝑑s`$
$`=`$ $`(1){\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^0}\gamma _{ij}(s){\displaystyle \frac{d}{ds}}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{100}{\delta ^2}}\varphi ({\displaystyle \frac{100(ts)}{\delta ^2}})\right\}𝑑s`$
$`+`$ $`(1){\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}\gamma _{ij}(s){\displaystyle \frac{d}{ds}}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{100}{\delta ^2}}\varphi ({\displaystyle \frac{100(ts)}{\delta ^2}})\right\}𝑑s.`$
Integrating by parts and considering the fact $`\gamma (t)`$ is continuous at $`0`$, we have that

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\gamma _{\delta }^{}{}_{ij}{}^{}(x,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _^1}\gamma _{ij}^{}(s)\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{100}{\delta ^2}}\varphi ({\displaystyle \frac{100(ts)}{\delta ^2}})\right\}𝑑s`$ (24)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _^1}\gamma _{ij}^{}(t\sigma _\delta (t)s)\varphi (s)𝑑s.`$
Therefore, for every $`t(ϵ,ϵ)`$, we have that

$$\frac{}{t}\gamma _{\delta }^{}{}_{ij}{}^{}(x,t)=_^1\gamma _{ij}^{}(t\sigma _\delta (t)s)\left\{1s\delta \sigma ^{}(\frac{t}{\delta })\right\}\varphi (s)𝑑s,$$
(25)
which shows that $`A_\delta (x,t)`$ is bounded by constants depending only on $`\gamma :(ϵ,ϵ)^0(\mathrm{\Sigma })`$. Since $`H_\delta (x,t)=g_\delta ^{ij}A_{\delta }^{}{}_{ij}{}^{}`$, Lemma 3.2 and (25) also imply that $`H_\delta (x,t)`$ is bounded by constants depending only on $`\gamma :(ϵ,ϵ)^0(\mathrm{\Sigma })`$.

To estimate $`\frac{}{t}H_\delta (x,t)`$, we need to compute the second order derivative of $`\gamma _\delta :(ϵ,ϵ)^0(\mathrm{\Sigma })`$. A similar calculation as above gives that, for $`|t|>\frac{\delta ^2}{100}`$,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{^2}{^2t}}\gamma _{\delta }^{}{}_{ij}{}^{}(x,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _^1}\gamma _{ij}^{\prime \prime }(t\sigma _\delta (t)s)\left\{1s\delta \sigma ^{}({\displaystyle \frac{t}{\delta }})\right\}^2\varphi (s)𝑑s+`$ (26)
$`{\displaystyle _^1}\gamma _{ij}^{}(t\sigma _\delta (t)s)\left\{s\sigma ^{\prime \prime }({\displaystyle \frac{t}{\delta }})\right\}\varphi (s)𝑑s`$
and, for $`|t|<\frac{\delta }{4}`$,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{^2}{^2t}}\gamma _{\delta }^{}{}_{ij}{}^{}(x,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _^1}\gamma _{ij}^{\prime \prime }(t\sigma _\delta (t)s)\varphi (s)𝑑s+`$ (27)
$`\left\{g_{+}^{}{}_{ij}{}^{}(0)g_{}^{}{}_{ij}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(0)\right\}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{100}{\delta ^2}}\varphi ({\displaystyle \frac{100t}{\delta ^2}})\right\}.`$
Since

$$\frac{}{t}H_\delta (x,t)=\frac{}{t}\left\{g_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{ij}(x,t)\right\}A_{\delta }^{}{}_{ij}{}^{}(x,t)+g_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{ij}(x,t)\frac{}{t}A_{\delta }^{}{}_{ij}{}^{}(x,t),$$
(28)
(26), (25) and Lemma 3.2 imply that, outside $`\mathrm{\Sigma }\times [\frac{100}{\delta ^2},\frac{100}{\delta ^2}]`$, $`\frac{}{t}H_\delta (x,t)`$ is bounded by constants only depending on $`\gamma :(ϵ,ϵ)^0(\mathrm{\Sigma })`$. On the other hand, inside $`\mathrm{\Sigma }\times [\frac{\delta ^2}{100},\frac{\delta ^2}{100}]`$, (27) and (28) show that

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}H_\delta (x,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\left\{g_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{ij}(x,t)\right\}A_{\delta }^{}{}_{ij}{}^{}(x,t)+`$ (29)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{ij}(x,t)\left\{{\displaystyle _^1}\gamma _{ij}^{\prime \prime }(t\sigma _\delta (t)s)\varphi (s)𝑑s\right\}+`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{ij}(x,t)\left\{g_{+}^{}{}_{ij}{}^{}(0)g_{}^{}{}_{ij}{}^{}(0)\right\}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{100}{\delta ^2}}\varphi ({\displaystyle \frac{100t}{\delta ^2}})\right\}.`$
The first two terms on the right are bounded by constants depending only on $`\gamma :(ϵ,ϵ)^0(\mathrm{\Sigma })`$. For the third one, we rewrite it as

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left\{g_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{ij}(x,t)g^{ij}(x,0)\right\}\left\{g_{+}^{}{}_{ij}{}^{}(0)g_{}^{}{}_{ij}{}^{}(0)\right\}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{100}{\delta ^2}}\varphi ({\displaystyle \frac{100t}{\delta ^2}})\right\}`$
$`+\left\{H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_+)(x)H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_{})(x)\right\}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{100}{\delta ^2}}\varphi ({\displaystyle \frac{100t}{\delta ^2}})\right\}.`$ (30)
By (7), Lemma 3.3 and the fact $`|t|\frac{\delta ^2}{100}`$ , we have that

$`|g_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{ij}(x,t)g^{ij}(x,0)|`$ $``$ $`|g_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{ij}(x,t)g^{ij}(x,t)|+|g^{ij}(x,t)g^{ij}(x,0)|`$ (31)
$``$ $`CL\delta ^2+CL\delta ^2,`$
where $`C>0`$ only depends on $`𝒢`$. Hence, we conclude that

$$\frac{}{t}H_\delta (x,t)=O(1)+\left\{H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_+)(x)H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_{})(x)\right\}\left\{\frac{100}{\delta ^2}\varphi (\frac{100t}{\delta ^2})\right\}$$
(32)
inside $`\mathrm{\Sigma }\times [\frac{\delta ^2}{100},\frac{\delta ^2}{100}]`$, where $`O(1)`$ represents bounded quantities with bounds depending only on $`𝒢`$.

We summarize the features of $`\{g_\delta \}`$ in the following proposition.

###### Proposition 3.1.

Let $`𝒢=(g_{},g_+)`$ be a metric admitting corners along $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. Then $``$ a family of $`C^2`$ metrics $`\{g_\delta \}_{0<\delta \delta _0}`$ $`on`$ $`\stackrel{~}{M}`$ so that $`g_\delta `$ is uniformly close to $`g`$ on $`\stackrel{~}{M}`$, $`g_\delta =g`$ outside $`\mathrm{\Sigma }\times (\frac{\delta }{2},\frac{\delta }{2})`$ and the scalar curvature of $`g_\delta `$ satisfies

$`R_\delta (x,t)`$ $`=`$ $`O(1),for(x,t)\mathrm{\Sigma }\times \{{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^2}{100}}<|t|{\displaystyle \frac{\delta }{2}}\}`$ (33)
$`R_\delta (x,t)`$ $`=`$ $`O(1)+\{H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_{})(x)H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_+)(x)\}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{100}{\delta ^2}}\varphi ({\displaystyle \frac{100t}{\delta ^2}})\right\},`$ (34)
$`for(x,t)\mathrm{\Sigma }\times [{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^2}{100}},{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^2}{100}}],`$
where $`O(1)`$ represents quantities that are bounded by constants depending only on $`𝒢`$, but not on $`\delta `$.

In case $`H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_{})H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_+)`$, the following corollary generalizes a reflecting argument used by H. Bray in his proof of the Riemannian Penrose Inequality .

###### Corollary 3.1.

Given $`𝒢=(g_{},g_+)`$, if $`H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_{})H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_+)`$, then $``$ a family of $`C^2`$ metrics $`\{g_\delta \}_{0<\delta \delta _0}`$ on $`\stackrel{~}{M}`$ so that $`g_\delta `$ is uniformly close to $`g`$ on $`\stackrel{~}{M}`$, $`g_\delta =g`$ outside $`\mathrm{\Sigma }\times (\frac{\delta }{2},\frac{\delta }{2})`$ and the scalar curvature of $`g_\delta `$ is uniformly bounded inside $`\mathrm{\Sigma }\times [\frac{\delta }{2},\frac{\delta }{2}]`$ with bounds depending only on $`𝒢`$, but not on $`\delta `$.

## 4 Proof of Theorem 1

We fix the following notations. Given a function $`f`$, we let $`f_+`$ and $`f_{}`$ denote the positive and negative part of $`f`$, i.e. $`f=f_+f_{}`$ and $`|f|=f_++f_{}`$. Given a metric $`g`$, we define the conformal Laplacian of $`g`$ to be $`L_g(u)=\mathrm{}_guc_nR(g)u`$, where $`c_n=\frac{n2}{4(n1)}`$ and $`R(g)`$ is the scalar curvature of $`g`$. The mass of $`g`$ will be denoted by $`m(g)`$ if it exists. Finally, we let $`C_0,C_1,C_2,\mathrm{}`$ represent constants depending only on $`𝒢`$.

Throughout this section, we assume that $`R(g_{}),R(g_+)0`$ in $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, $`M\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$, and $`H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_{})(x)H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_+)(x)`$ for all $`x\mathrm{\Sigma }`$.

### 4.1 Conformal Deformation

We want to modify $`\{g_\delta \}`$ on $`\stackrel{~}{M}`$ to get $`C^2`$ metrics with non-negative scalar curvature. For that purpose we use conformal deformation. The following fundamental lemma is due to Schoen and Yau. Interested readers may refer to  for a detailed proof.

###### Lemma 4.1.

 Let g be a $`C^2`$ asymptotically flat metric on $`\stackrel{~}{M}`$ and $`f`$ be a function that has the same decay rate at $`\mathrm{}`$ as $`R(g)`$, then $``$ a number $`ϵ_0>0`$ depending only on the $`C^0`$ norm of $`g`$ and the decay rate of $`g`$, $`g`$ and $`g`$ at $`\mathrm{}`$ so that if

$$\left\{_{\stackrel{~}{M}}|f_{}|^{\frac{n}{2}}𝑑g\right\}^{\frac{2}{n}}<ϵ_0,$$
(35)
then

$$\{\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \mathrm{}_guc_nfu& \hfill =& \hfill 0\\ \hfill lim_x\mathrm{}u& \hfill =& \hfill 1\end{array}$$
(36)
has a $`C^2`$ positive solution $`u`$ defined on $`\stackrel{~}{M}`$ so that $`u=1+\frac{A}{|x|^{n2}}+\omega `$ for some constant A and some function $`\omega `$, where $`\omega =O(|x|^{1n})`$ and $`\omega =O(|x|^n)`$.

For each $`\delta `$, we consider the following equation

$$\{\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \mathrm{}_{g_\delta }u_\delta +c_nR_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{}u_\delta & \hfill =& 0\hfill \\ \hfill lim_x\mathrm{}u_\delta & \hfill =& 1.\hfill \end{array}$$
(37)
It follows from Proposition 3.1 and assumptions on $`R(g_{})`$ and $`R(g_+)`$ that

$$\{\begin{array}{cc}R_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{}=0,\hfill & \mathrm{outside}\mathrm{\Sigma }\times [\frac{\delta }{2},\frac{\delta }{2}]\hfill \\ |R_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{}|C_0,\hfill & \mathrm{inside}\mathrm{\Sigma }\times [\frac{\delta }{2},\frac{\delta }{2}].\hfill \end{array}$$
(38)
Therefore, (35) holds with $`f`$ and $`g`$ replaced by $`R_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{}`$ and $`g_\delta `$, for sufficiently small $`\delta `$. We note that $`ϵ_0`$ can be chosen to be independent on $`\delta `$ because of Proposition 3.1. Hence the solution to (37) exists by Lemma 4.1. We have the following $`L^{\mathrm{}}`$ and $`C^{2,\alpha }`$ estimate for $`\{u_\delta \}`$.

###### Proposition 4.1.

$`lim_{\delta 0}u_\delta 1_{L^{\mathrm{}}(\stackrel{~}{M})}=0`$ and $`u_\delta _{C^{2,\alpha }(K)}C_K`$. Here $`K`$ is any compact set in $`\stackrel{~}{M}\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and $`C_K`$ only depends on $`g`$ and $`K`$.

*Proof*: It suffices to obtain the $`L^{\mathrm{}}`$ estimate of $`|u_\delta 1|`$ because, once it is established, the $`C^{2,\alpha }`$ estimate will follow directly from the fact $`\mathrm{}_gu_\delta =0`$ outside $`\mathrm{\Sigma }\times [\frac{\delta }{2},\frac{\delta }{2}]`$ and the standard Schauder theory. Let $`w_\delta =u_\delta 1`$, we have that

$$\mathrm{}_{g_\delta }w_\delta +c_nR_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{}w_\delta =c_nR_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{}$$
(39)
where $`w_\delta =\frac{A_\delta }{|x|^{n2}}+\omega _\delta `$ for some constant $`A_\delta `$ and some function $`\omega _\delta `$ with the decay rate in Lemma 4.1. Multiply (39) by $`w_\delta `$ and integrate over $`\stackrel{~}{M}`$,

$$_{\stackrel{~}{M}}(w_\delta \mathrm{}_{g_\delta }w_\delta +c_nR_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{}w_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{2})𝑑g_\delta =_{\stackrel{~}{M}}c_nR_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{}w_\delta dg_\delta .$$
(40)
Integrating by parts and using H$`\ddot{o}`$lder Inequality, we have that

$`{\displaystyle _{\stackrel{~}{M}}}|_{g_\delta }w_\delta |^2𝑑g_\delta `$ $``$ $`c_n\left({\displaystyle _{\stackrel{~}{M}}}|R_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{}|^{\frac{n}{2}}𝑑g_\delta \right)^{\frac{2}{n}}\left({\displaystyle _{\stackrel{~}{M}}}w_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{\frac{2n}{n2}}𝑑g_\delta \right)^{\frac{n2}{n}}`$ (41)
$`+c_n\left({\displaystyle _{\stackrel{~}{M}}}|R_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{}|^{\frac{2n}{n+2}}𝑑g_\delta \right)^{\frac{n+2}{2n}}\left({\displaystyle _{\stackrel{~}{M}}}w_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{\frac{2n}{n2}}𝑑g_\delta \right)^{\frac{n2}{2n}}.`$
On the other hand, the Sobolev Inequality gives that

$$\left(_{\stackrel{~}{M}}w_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{\frac{2n}{n2}}𝑑g_\delta \right)^{\frac{n2}{n}}C_\delta _{\stackrel{~}{M}}|_{g_\delta }w_\delta |^2𝑑g_\delta ,$$
(42)
where $`C_\delta `$ denotes the Sobolev Constant of the metric $`g_\delta `$. It follows from (41), (42) and the elementary inequality $`ab\frac{a^2}{2}+\frac{b^2}{2}`$ that

$`\left({\displaystyle _{\stackrel{~}{M}}}w_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{\frac{2n}{n2}}𝑑g_\delta \right)^{\frac{n2}{n}}`$ $``$ $`C_\delta c_n\left({\displaystyle _{\stackrel{~}{M}}}|R_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{}|^{\frac{n}{2}}𝑑g_\delta \right)^{\frac{2}{n}}\left({\displaystyle _{\stackrel{~}{M}}}w_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{\frac{2n}{n2}}𝑑g_\delta \right)^{\frac{n2}{n}}`$ (43)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}C_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}c_{n}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\left({\displaystyle _{\stackrel{~}{M}}}|R_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{}|^{\frac{2n}{n+2}}𝑑g_\delta \right)^{\frac{n+2}{n}}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left({\displaystyle _{\stackrel{~}{M}}}w_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{\frac{2n}{n2}}𝑑g_\delta \right)^{\frac{n2}{n}}.`$
We note that Proposition 3.1 implies that $`C_\delta `$ is uniformly close to the Sobolev Constant of $`g`$. Hence, for sufficiently small $`\delta `$, (43) gives that

$$\left(_{\stackrel{~}{M}}w_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{\frac{2n}{n2}}𝑑g_\delta \right)^{\frac{n2}{n}}C\left(_{\stackrel{~}{M}}|R_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{}|^{\frac{2n}{n+2}}𝑑g_\delta \right)^{\frac{n+2}{n}}=o(1),\mathrm{as}\delta 0.$$
(44)
This $`L^{\frac{2n}{n2}}`$ estimate and (39) imply the supremum estimate for $`w_\delta `$

$`\underset{\stackrel{~}{M}}{sup}|w_\delta |`$ $``$ $`C\left\{\left({\displaystyle _{\stackrel{~}{M}}}w_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{\frac{2n}{n2}}𝑑g_\delta \right)^{\frac{n2}{2n}}+\left({\displaystyle _{\stackrel{~}{M}}}|R_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{}|^{\frac{n}{n2}}𝑑g_\delta \right)^{\frac{n2}{n}}\right\}`$ (45)
$`=`$ $`o(1)\mathrm{as}\delta 0`$
by the standard linear theory(Theorem 8.17 in). $`\mathrm{}`$

Now we define

$$\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta =u_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{\frac{4}{n2}}g_\delta .$$
(46)
It follows from Proposition 4.1 that, passing to a subsequence, $`\{\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta \}`$ converges to $`g`$ in $`C^0`$ topology on $`\stackrel{~}{M}`$ and in $`C^2`$ topology on compact sets away from $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. By the conformal transformation formulae of scalar curvature , we also have that

$$\stackrel{~}{R}_\delta =c_n^1u_\delta ^{(\frac{n+2}{n2})}L_{g_\delta }(u_\delta )=u_\delta ^{\frac{4}{2n}}R_{\delta }^{}{}_{+}{}^{}0,$$
(47)
where $`\stackrel{~}{R}_\delta `$ represents the scalar curvature of $`\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta `$.

###### Lemma 4.2.

The mass of $`\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta `$ converges to the mass of $`𝒢`$.

*Proof*: A straightforward calculation using the definition of mass reveals that

$$m(\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta )=m(g_\delta )+(n1)A_\delta ,$$
(48)
where $`A_\delta `$ is given by the expansion $`u_\delta (x)=1+A_\delta |x|^{2n}+O(|x|^{1n})`$. Applying integration by parts to (37) multiplied by $`u_\delta `$, we have that

$$(2n)\omega _nA_\delta =_{\stackrel{~}{M}}\left[|_{g_\delta }u_\delta |^2c_nR_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{}u_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\right]𝑑g_\delta ,$$
(49)
where $`\omega _n`$ is the volume of the $`n1`$ dimensional unit sphere in $`^n`$. It follows from that (48) and (49) that

$$m(g_\delta )=m(\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta )+\frac{n1}{n2}\omega _n_{\stackrel{~}{M}}\left[|_{g_\delta }u_\delta |^2c_nR_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{}u_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\right]𝑑g_\delta .$$
(50)
We note that the integral term above approaches $`0`$ by Proposition 4.1, (38) and (41). Hence, we have that

$$\underset{\delta 0}{lim}m(\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta )=\underset{\delta 0}{lim}m(g_\delta )=m(𝒢).$$

$`\mathrm{}`$

Applying the classical PMT  to each $`\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta `$, we have that $`m(\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta )0`$. Thus, the non-negativity of $`m(𝒢)`$ follows directly from Lemma 4.2.

### 4.2 Scalar Curvature Concentration

In this subsection, we assume that there exists strict jump of mean curvature across $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, i.e.

$$H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_{})(x)>H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_+)(x)\mathrm{for}\mathrm{some}x\mathrm{\Sigma }.$$

We will prove that $`𝒢`$ has a strict positive mass.

Since $`H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_{})`$ and $`H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_+)`$ both are continuous functions on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, we can choose a compact set $`K\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ so that

$$H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_{})(x)H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_+)(x)\eta ,xK$$
(51)
for some fixed $`\eta >0`$. By Proposition 3.1, we have that

$`R_{\delta }^{}{}_{+}{}^{}(x,t)\eta \left\{{\displaystyle \frac{100}{\delta ^2}}\varphi ({\displaystyle \frac{100t}{\delta ^2}})\right\}C_0,`$ $`(x,t)K\times [{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^2}{100}},{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^2}{100}}],`$ (52)
which suggests that the scalar curvature of $`g_\delta `$ and $`\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta `$ has a fixed amount of concentration on $`K`$.

To exploit this fact, we use conformal deformation again to make $`\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta `$ even scalar flat. Since $`\stackrel{~}{R}_\delta =u_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{\frac{4}{2n}}R_{\delta }^{}{}_{+}{}^{}0`$, $``$ a $`C^2`$ positive solution to the following equations

$$\{\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \mathrm{}_{\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta }v_\delta c_n\stackrel{~}{R}_\delta v_\delta & \hfill =& 0\hfill \\ \hfill lim_x\mathrm{}v_\delta & \hfill =& 1.\hfill \end{array}$$
(53)
By the maximum principle, we have that

$$0<v_\delta 1.$$
(54)
Now define

$$\widehat{g}_\delta =v_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{\frac{4}{n2}}\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta .$$
(55)
Similar to previous discussion, we know that $`\widehat{g}_\delta `$ is an asymptotically flat metric and the scalar curvature of $`\widehat{g}_\delta `$ is identically zero. Furthermore, $`m(\widehat{g}_\delta )`$ and $`m(\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta )`$ are related by

$$m(\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta )=m(\widehat{g}_\delta )+\frac{n1}{n2}\omega _n_{\stackrel{~}{M}}\left[|_{\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta }v_\delta |^2+c_n\stackrel{~}{R}_\delta v_\delta ^2\right]𝑑\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta ,$$
(56)
where $`m(\widehat{g}_\delta )0`$ by the classical PMT. Hence, to prove $`m(𝒢)>0`$, it suffices to show the integral term in (56) has a strict positive lower bound.

###### Proposition 4.2.

$$\underset{\delta >0}{inf}\left\{_{\stackrel{~}{M}}\left[|_{\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta }v_\delta |^2+c_n\stackrel{~}{R}_\delta v_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\right]𝑑\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta \right\}>0$$
(57)
*Proof*: Assume (57) is not true, passing to a subsequence, we may assume that

$$\underset{\delta 0}{lim}_{\stackrel{~}{M}}\left[|_{\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta }v_\delta |^2+c_n\stackrel{~}{R}_\delta v_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\right]𝑑\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta =0.$$
(58)
Since $`\stackrel{~}{R}_\delta 0`$, (58) is equivalent to

$$\underset{\delta 0}{lim}_{\stackrel{~}{M}}|_{\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta }v_\delta |^2𝑑\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta =0\mathrm{and}\underset{\delta 0}{lim}_{\stackrel{~}{M}}\stackrel{~}{R}_\delta v_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}𝑑\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta =0.$$
(59)
Outside $`\mathrm{\Sigma }\times [\frac{\delta }{2},\frac{\delta }{2}]`$, we have $`g_\delta =g`$. Hence, (53) becomes

$$\mathrm{}_{\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta }v_\delta c_n\left(u_\delta ^{\frac{4}{2n}}R(g)_+\right)v_\delta =0.$$
(60)
It follows from Proposition 4.1, (54) and Schauder Estimates that, passing to a subsequence, $`v_\delta `$ converges to a function $`v`$ in $`C^2`$ topology on compact sets away from $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. By (59), we have that

$$_{\stackrel{~}{M}\mathrm{\Sigma }}|_gv|^2𝑑g=0,$$
(61)
which shows that $`v`$ is a constant on $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{M}\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$.

We claim that $`v=1`$ on $`\stackrel{~}{M}\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$. If not, we may assume $`v=\beta <1`$ by (54). We fix a $`\delta _0(0,ϵ)`$ and denote the region inside $`\mathrm{\Sigma }\times \{\delta _0\}`$ by $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\delta _0}`$. For each $`\delta <\delta _0`$, we let $`w_\delta `$ be the solution to the following equations

$$\{\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \mathrm{}_{\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta }w_\delta =0& \mathrm{on}\stackrel{~}{M}\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_{\delta _0}\hfill \\ \hfill w_\delta =v_\delta & \mathrm{on}\mathrm{\Sigma }\times \{\delta _0\}\hfill \\ \hfill w_\delta (x)1& \mathrm{at}\mathrm{}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(62)
Since $`w_\delta `$ minimizes the Dirichlet energy among all functions with the same boundary values, we have that

$$_{\stackrel{~}{M}\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_{\delta _0}}|_{\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta }w_\delta |^2𝑑\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta _{\stackrel{~}{M}\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_{\delta _0}}|_{\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta }v_\delta |^2𝑑\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta .$$
(63)
On the other hand, if we choose $`w`$ to solve

$$\{\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \mathrm{}_gw=0& \mathrm{on}\stackrel{~}{M}\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_{\delta _0}\hfill \\ \hfill w=\beta & \mathrm{on}\mathrm{\Sigma }\times \{\delta _0\}\hfill \\ \hfill w(x)1& \mathrm{at}\mathrm{},\hfill \end{array}$$
(64)
we have that

$$_{\stackrel{~}{M}\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_{\delta _0}}|_gw|^2𝑑g=\underset{\delta 0}{lim}_{\stackrel{~}{M}\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_{\delta _0}}|_{\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta }w_\delta |^2𝑑\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta ,$$
(65)
because $`\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta g`$ uniformly on $`\stackrel{~}{M}`$ and $`v_\delta \beta `$ uniformly on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }\times \{\delta _0\}`$. Hence, it follows from (59), (63) and (65) that

$$_{\stackrel{~}{M}\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_{\delta _0}}|_gw|^2𝑑g\underset{\delta 0}{lim}_{\stackrel{~}{M}\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_{\delta _0}}|_{\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta }v_\delta |^2𝑑\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta =0,$$
(66)
which implies that $`w`$ must be a constant. Since $`\beta <1`$, we get a contradiction. Therefore, $`v=1`$ on $`\stackrel{~}{M}\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$.

Next, we let $`\mu `$, $`\mu _\delta `$ denote the $`(n1)`$-dimensional volume measure induced by $`g`$, $`\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta `$ on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and let $`e_\delta `$ denote the energy $`_{\stackrel{~}{M}}|_{\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta }v_\delta |^2𝑑\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta `$.

We fix $`0<\theta <1`$ and $`0<\sigma <ϵ`$. Since $`v_\delta 1`$ uniformly on compact set away from $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, we have that

$$v_\delta >\theta \mathrm{on}\mathrm{\Sigma }_\sigma ,\mathrm{for}\delta 1,$$
(67)
where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_t`$ is the slice $`\mathrm{\Sigma }\times \{t\}`$. We do all the estimates inside the strip $`N_\sigma =\mathrm{\Sigma }\times [\sigma ,\sigma ]`$. First, we have that

$$_\mathrm{\Sigma }\left\{_\sigma ^\sigma |_{\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta }v_\delta (x,t)|^2𝑑t\right\}𝑑\mu _\delta (x)C_1_{N_\sigma }|_{\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta }v_\delta |^2𝑑\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta C_1e_\delta .$$
(68)
Let $`l_\delta (x)=_\sigma ^\sigma |_{\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta }v_\delta (x,t)|^2𝑑t`$, (68) becomes

$$_\mathrm{\Sigma }l_\delta (x)𝑑\mu _\delta (x)C_1e_\delta .$$
(69)
For any $`k>1,\delta >0`$, we define

$`A_{\delta ,k}=\left\{x\mathrm{\Sigma }\right|l_\delta (x)k{\displaystyle \frac{C_1e_\delta }{\mu _\delta (\mathrm{\Sigma })}}\}`$ (70)
$`A_{\delta ,k}^K=A_{\delta ,k}K`$ (71)
$`A_{\delta ,k,\sigma }^K=A_{\delta ,k}^K\times [\sigma ,\sigma ].`$ (72)
By (69) we have that

$$\mu _\delta (A_{\delta ,k})(1\frac{1}{k})\mu _\delta (\mathrm{\Sigma }).$$
(73)
Since $`\mu _\delta `$ is uniformly close to $`\mu `$, (73) implies that

$$\mu _\delta (A_{\delta ,k}^K)\frac{1}{2}\mu _\delta (K)$$
(74)
for some fixed large $`k`$ and any $`\delta 1`$.

For any $`(x,t)A_{\delta ,k,\sigma }^K`$, we have that

$`|v_\delta (x,\sigma )v_\delta (x,t)|`$ $``$ $`C_2{\displaystyle _\sigma ^\sigma }|_{\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta }v_\delta |(x,t)𝑑t`$ (75)
$``$ $`C_2(2\sigma )^{\frac{1}{2}}\left\{{\displaystyle _\sigma ^\sigma }|_{\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta }v_\delta |^2(x,t)𝑑t\right\}^{\frac{1}{2}}`$
$`=`$ $`C_2(2\sigma )^{\frac{1}{2}}l_\delta (x)^{\frac{1}{2}}`$
$``$ $`C_2(2\sigma )^{\frac{1}{2}}\left\{k{\displaystyle \frac{C_1e_\delta }{\mu _\delta (\mathrm{\Sigma })}}\right\}^{\frac{1}{2}}.`$
It follows from (67) that

$$v_\delta (x,t)\theta C_2(2\sigma )^{\frac{1}{2}}\left\{k\frac{C_1e_\delta }{\mu _\delta (\mathrm{\Sigma })}\right\}^{\frac{1}{2}}.$$
(76)
On the other hand, for $`xA_{\delta ,k}^K`$, we have that

$$_\delta ^\delta \stackrel{~}{R}_\delta (x,t)𝑑tu_\delta ^{\frac{4}{2n}}(x)_{\frac{\delta ^2}{100}}^{\frac{\delta ^2}{100}}\left\{\eta \left\{\frac{100}{\delta ^2}\varphi (\frac{100t}{\delta ^2})\right\}C_0\right\}𝑑t.$$
(77)
Therefore, we have the following estimate

$`\underset{\delta 0}{lim\; inf}{\displaystyle _{A_{\delta ,k,\sigma }^K}}\stackrel{~}{R}_\delta v_{\delta }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}𝑑\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta `$
$`\underset{\delta 0}{lim\; inf}\left\{\left\{\theta C_2\left\{(2\sigma )k{\displaystyle \frac{C_1e_\delta }{\mu _\delta (\mathrm{\Sigma })}}\right\}^{\frac{1}{2}}\right\}^2{\displaystyle _{A_{\delta ,k,\sigma }^K}}\stackrel{~}{R}_\delta 𝑑\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta \right\}`$
$`\theta ^2C_3\underset{\delta 0}{lim\; inf}\left\{{\displaystyle _{A_{\delta ,k}^K}}\left\{{\displaystyle _\delta ^\delta }\stackrel{~}{R}_\delta (x,t)𝑑t\right\}𝑑\mu _\delta \right\}`$
$`C_3\theta ^2\eta \underset{\delta 0}{lim\; inf}\mu _\delta (A_{\delta ,k}^K)`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}C_3\theta ^2\eta \mu (K)>0`$ (78)
which is a contradiction to (59). $`\mathrm{}`$

We conclude that $`𝒢`$ has a strict positive mass in case there exists strict jump of mean curvature across $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$.

## 5 Zero Mass Case

Let $`𝒢=(g_{},g_+)`$ satisfy all the assumptions in Theorem 1 and $`m(g_+)=0`$. The following corollary on $`R(g_+),R(g_{})`$ follows directly from Theorem 1.

###### Corollary 5.1.

Under the above assumptions, $`g_{}`$ and $`g_+`$ both have zero scalar curvature in $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`M\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$.

*Proof*: First, we assume that $`R(g_{})`$ is not identically zero in $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. Let $`u`$ be a positive solution to the equation

$$\{\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \mathrm{}_g_{}uc_nR(g_{})u=0& \mathrm{on}\mathrm{\Omega }\hfill \\ \hfill u=1& \mathrm{on}\mathrm{\Sigma }.\hfill \end{array}$$
(79)
Consider $`\stackrel{~}{𝒢}=(\stackrel{~}{g}_{},g_+)`$, where $`\stackrel{~}{g}_{}=u^{\frac{4}{n2}}g_{}`$. Since $`u`$ solves the conformal Laplacian of $`g_{}`$, $`\stackrel{~}{g}_{}`$ has zero scalar curvature. By the strong maximum principle, we have $`\frac{u}{\nu }>0`$, where $`\nu `$ is the unit outward normal to $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. A direct computation shows that

$$H(\mathrm{\Sigma },\stackrel{~}{g}_{})(x)=H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_{})(x)+\frac{2}{n2}\frac{u}{\nu }(x).$$
(80)
Hence, $`H(\mathrm{\Sigma },\stackrel{~}{g}_{})>H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_{})H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_+)`$. Applying Theorem 1 to $`\stackrel{~}{𝒢}`$, we see that $`m(\stackrel{~}{𝒢})>0`$, which is a contradiction.

Second, we assume that $`R(g_+)`$ is not identically zero in $`M\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$. Let $`v`$ be a positive solution to

$$\{\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \mathrm{}_{g_+}vc_nR(g_+)v=0& \mathrm{on}M\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}\hfill \\ \hfill v=1& \mathrm{on}\mathrm{\Sigma }\hfill \\ \hfill v1& \mathrm{at}\mathrm{}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(81)
Consider $`\widehat{𝒢}=(g_{},\widehat{g}_+)`$, where $`\widehat{g}_+=v^{\frac{4}{n2}}g_+`$. A similar argument shows that $`\widehat{g}_+`$ is scalar flat in $`M\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ and $`H(\mathrm{\Sigma },\widehat{g}_+)<H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_+)H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_{}).`$ Therefore, Theorem 1 implies that $`m(\widehat{𝒢})>0`$. On the other hand, we have that

$$m(\widehat{𝒢})=m(𝒢)+A,$$
(82)
where $`v=1+A|x|^{2n}+O(|x|^{1n})`$. By the maximum principle, $`A0`$. Hence, $`m(𝒢)m(\widehat{𝒢})>0`$, which is again a contradiction to the assumption that $`m(𝒢)=0`$. $`\mathrm{}`$

Corollary 5.1 only reveals information on the scalar curvature, it would be more interesting to know if $`m(𝒢)=0`$ implies that $`𝒢`$ is flat away from $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. Such a type of questions has been studied by H. Bray and F. Finster in . In particular, they obtained the following result concerning the mass and the curvature of a metric which can be approximated by smooth metrics in their sense.

###### Proposition 5.1.

 Suppose $`\{g_i\}`$ is a sequence of $`C^3`$, complete, asymptotically flat metrics on $`M^3`$ with non-negative scalar curvature and the total masses $`\{m_i\}`$ which converge to a possibly non-smooth limit metric $`g`$ in the $`C^0`$ sense. Let $`U`$ be the interior of the sets of points where this convergence of metrics is locally $`C^3`$.

Then if the metrics $`\{g_i\}`$ have uniformly positive isoperimetric constants and their masses $`\{m_i\}`$ converges to zero, then $`g`$ is flat in $`U`$.

Now we are in a position to show that, in case $`n=3`$, $`𝒢`$ is regular cross $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and $`(M,𝒢)`$ is isometric to $`(^3,g_o)`$.

*Proof of Theorem 2*: First, we show that $`g_{}`$ and $`g_+`$ are flat in $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`M\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$. Since $`g_{}`$ and $`g_+`$ are $`C_{loc}^{3,\alpha }`$, it follows from the proof of Proposition 4.1 that $`\{\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta \}`$ converges to $`g`$ locally in $`C^3`$ away from $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. By Proposition 3.1, we know that $`\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta `$ and $`g`$ are uniformly close on $`\stackrel{~}{M}`$, hence $`\{\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta \}`$ has uniformly positive isoperimetric constants. By Lemma 4.2, we know that $`lim_{\delta 0}m(\stackrel{~}{g}_\delta )=0`$. Therefore, $`g_{}`$ and $`g_+`$ are flat by Proposition 5.1.

Second, we show that $`A_{}=A_+`$, where $`A_{}`$ and $`A_+`$ are the second fundamental forms of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ in $`(\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }},g_{})`$ and $`(M\mathrm{\Omega },g_+)`$. Taking trace of the Codazzi equation and using the fact that $`g_{},g_+`$ is flat, we have that

$$\{\begin{array}{ccc}div_{g_\sigma }A_{}& =& H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_{})\hfill \\ div_{g_\sigma }A_+& =& H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_+),\hfill \end{array}$$
(83)
where $`g_\sigma `$ is the induced metric $`g_{}|_\mathrm{\Sigma }=g_+|_\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. On the other hand, Theorem 1 implies that $`H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_{})H(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_+)`$ on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. Hence,

$$div_{g_\sigma }(A_{}A_+)=0\mathrm{and}tr_{g_\sigma }(A_{}A_+)=0.$$
(84)
We recall the fact that any divergence free and trace free $`(0,2)`$ symmetric tensor on $`(S^2,g_\sigma )`$ must vanish identically , thus we conclude that $`A_{}=A_+`$. Now it follows from the fundamental theorem of surface theory in $`^3`$ that $`𝒢`$ is actually $`C^2`$ across $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. The classical PMT  then implies that $`(M,𝒢)`$ is isometric to $`^3`$ with the standard metric. $`\mathrm{}`$

Acknowledgments: I would like to thank my Ph.D. advisor Professor Richard Schoen for bringing up this problem and for his superb direction. I also would like to thank Professor Robert Bartnik and Professor Hubert Bray for many stimulating discussions.


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text:
# An Upper Bound for the Number of Planar Lattice Triangulations

## The Haystack Approach

Let $`P`$ be a closed, not necessarily convex lattice polygon and $`int(P)`$ its interior. Define $`M:=(\frac{1}{2}^2^2)int(P)`$, the possible midpoints of the inner edges of a lattice triangulation of $`P`$.

###### Lemma 2

In any unimodular triangulation of $`P`$ there is a canonical bijection between the inner edges $`E^{}`$ and their midpoints in $`M`$.

Proof: The injection from $`E^{}`$ to $`M`$ is clear.
On the other hand all unimodular triangles are $`SL(2,)`$-equivalent to $`^2`$-translates of $`conv\{\mathrm{𝟎},e_1,e_2\}`$, so they don’t contain interior points from $`M`$. $`\mathrm{}`$

Notation: For a subcomplex $`S`$ of a triangulation of $`P`$ and $`rM`$, if there is an edge through $`r`$ in $`S`$ we denote it by $`e_S(r)`$. We use a lexicographic order on $`(\frac{1}{2})^2`$:

$$(x_1,y_1)(x_2,y_2)[y_1<y_2]\text{ or }[y_1=y_2\text{ and }x_1<x_2].$$

###### Definition 3

A haystack $`H`$ (with respect to some $`rM`$) is a subcomplex of a triangulation of $`P`$, with an edge through $`r^{}M`$ if and only if $`r^{}r`$.

Proof of Theorem 1:
The idea is to run through $`M`$ lexicographically, and at each step to add an edge through $`rM`$. We will see that in each step there are at most two possibilities to put the new edge through $`r`$.

We proceed by induction on the totally ordered set $`(M,)`$, thus proving that the number of haystacks with respect to some $`rM`$ is $`2^{e_r}`$ where $`e_r`$ is the number of predecessors of $`r`$ in $`M`$. Thus after the final step (that is, after processing the largest $`r`$ in $`(M,)`$) we have obtained that there are at most $`2^{|M|}=2^{|E^{}|}`$ unimodular triangulations of $`P`$.

Now for some $`rM`$ consider a haystack $`H`$ with respect to $`r`$. We want to add a “needle” to our haystack so that the resulting subcomplex will again be a haystack. So we consider the set $`A_r`$ of possible endpoints $`v`$ of edges through $`r`$, with $`vr`$:

$$A_r:=\left\{v^2\right|vr\text{ and }H\{[v,v+2\stackrel{}{vr}]\}\text{ is a haystack }\}.$$

We want to prove that $`|A_r|2`$ for all $`rM`$.

We say that $`v`$ is visible from $`r`$ if the edge $`[v,r]`$ crosses no other edge or integral point. Consider

$$A:=\left\{vconv(\{r\}A_r)^2\right|v\text{ is visible from }r\}.$$

As $`vA_r`$ is visible from $`r`$ we have $`AA_r`$. Furthermore $`vr`$ holds for all $`vA`$. (See Figure 2).

We now order $`A`$ by the angles $`\alpha (v)`$ of $`\stackrel{}{rv}`$ with the $`x`$-axis turning counter-clockwise and starting by $`\pi `$, so that we have $`\alpha _i=\alpha (v_i),\alpha _1<\alpha _2<\mathrm{}<\alpha _k`$. Indeed, we never have $`\alpha _i=\alpha _j`$, otherwise $`r,v_i,v_j`$ would lie on a line, but then one of the two points $`v_i,v_j`$ would not be visible from $`r`$, because both are $`r`$.

Observe that $`v_1A_r`$: $`vr`$ for all $`vA`$, so a point $`v`$ with a smaller angle to the $`x`$-axis than the first one in $`A_r`$ can’t be in $`conv(A_r\{r\})A`$.

We say that a triangle $`[v_i,v_{i+1},r]`$ is empty if there is no edge through it and no $`\frac{1}{2}^2`$-points in its interior. The triangle $`[v_i,v_{i+1},r]`$ is empty as $`A`$ contains all points in $`conv(A_r\{r\})[v_i,v_{i+1},r]`$ visible from $`r`$. The midpoint $`s_i:=\frac{1}{2}(v_i+v_{i+1})`$ is half-integer, $`s_iM`$, as $`[v_i,v_{i+1},r]`$ is empty. We also have $`s_ir`$, and so $`e_H(s_i)=[v_i,v_{i+1}]`$, since the triangle $`[v_i,v_{i+1},r]`$ is empty. Additionally it has area $`\frac{1}{4}`$, otherwise the triangle wouldn’t be empty.

Define $`w_i:=r+\stackrel{}{v_ir}`$ and $`r^{}:=\frac{1}{2}(v_1+w_2)`$, $`r^{\prime \prime }:=\frac{1}{2}(v_2+w_1)`$. Then $`v_1,w_2,v_2,w_1`$ form a parallelogram with center $`r`$, and $`r,r^{},r^{\prime \prime }`$ are on a line (parallel to $`(v_1v_2)`$). So either $`r^{}r`$ or $`r^{\prime \prime }r`$.

Case 1: Suppose first that $`r^{}r`$.
The triangle $`\mathrm{\Delta }=[v_1,v_2,w_2]`$ is unimodular as $`area(\mathrm{\Delta })=2area[v_1,v_2,r]=\frac{1}{2}`$; so there are no integer points between the line $`(w_1w_2)`$ and the line $`(v_1v_2)`$. The edge $`e_H(r^{})`$ has nonempty intersection with these two lines (but doesn’t cross $`[v_1,w_1]`$, since $`v_1A_r`$).

But where could a third point $`vA_r`$ (other than $`v_1,v_3`$) be? The line $`(r^{}r)`$ is parallel to $`(v_1v_2)`$, we have $`\alpha (r^{})<\alpha _1\alpha _i`$; and $`r^{}r,vr`$ for all $`vA_r`$. So all points of $`A`$ are on the same side of $`(r^{}r)`$ as $`v_1`$ and $`v_2`$. So $`v`$ is on or beyond the line $`(v_1v_2)`$ and hence the edge through $`r`$ starting at $`v`$ would necessarily cross the edge $`e_H(r^{})`$. So there can be no other point $`v`$ in $`A_r`$, that is, $`|A_r|2`$.

Case 2: The situation for $`r^{\prime \prime }r`$ is similar:
The edge through $`r^{\prime \prime }`$ must be $`e(r^{\prime \prime })=[v_2,w_1]`$, otherwise it would cut $`[v_1,w_1]`$ or $`[v_1,v_2]`$; in the first case we would have $`v_1A_r`$ and in the second case $`v_2`$ wouldn’t be visible from $`r`$. And $`[v_1,v_2,w_1]`$ is again unimodular, so there is no possibility for a third $`vA_r`$. $`\mathrm{}`$

Our Theorem 1 and its proof clearly extend to a more general situation, namely the case of a not necessarily simply connected lattice polygon (which may have holes), possibly with additional, fixed inner edges.

We can define the capacities $`c_{m,n}:=\frac{\mathrm{log}_2f(m,n)}{mn}`$; see . From sublinearity of $`f(m,n)`$ it follows by Fekete’s lemma \[3, p. 85\] that the limit capacities

$$c_m:=\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{\mathrm{log}_2f(m,n)}{mn},c_\mathrm{\Delta }:=\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{\mathrm{log}_2f(n,n)}{n^2}$$

exist. Theorem 1 yields the upper bounds

$$c_m3\frac{1}{m},$$

which includes the best known upper bounds for all $`c_m`$ (compare ).

In generating triangulations with the “haystack approach” as in the proof of Theorem 1, one will in many situations have $`|A_r|=1`$. So probably our upper bound $`c_\mathrm{\Delta }3`$ for the limit capacity $`c_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is not sharp.

As for lower bounds, the recursion formulas for ($`n\times 2`$)- and ($`n\times 3`$)-strips, as given in , together with submultiplicativity, show that $`c_\mathrm{\Delta }>2.055`$.


text:
# The Polyakov loop and the heat kernel expansion at finite temperature

## Abstract

The lower order terms of the heat kernel expansion at coincident points are computed in the context of finite temperature quantum field theory for flat space-time and in the presence of general gauge and scalar fields which may be non Abelian and non stationary. The computation is carried out in the imaginary time formalism and the result is fully consistent with invariance under topologically large and small gauge transformations. The Polyakov loop is shown to play a fundamental role.

Finite temperature; heat kernel expansion; Effective action; Gauge invariance

The heat kernel $`e^{\tau K}`$, where $`K`$ is an Euclidean Klein-Gordon operator, was introduced by Schwinger Schwinger:1951nm  in quantum field theory as a tool to regularize ultraviolet divergences in a gauge invariant way. The procedure of systematically isolating these divergences was developed by DeWitt through an asymptotic expansion in powers of the proper time $`\tau `$ Dewitt:1975ys ; Seeley:1967ea . The heat kernel as well as its expansion has also been applied to study spectral densities and indices of Dirac operators ($`\widehat{D}`$) Gilkey:1975iq ; Atiyah:1973ad  in terms of effective Klein-Gordon operators ($`\widehat{D}^{}\widehat{D}`$), to compute the $`\zeta `$-function Hawking:1977ja  and anomalies of such operators Fujikawa:1980eg , to properly define the effective action of chiral gauge theories Ball:1989xg , to the Casimir effect Bordag:2001qi , etc. Exact calculations of the heat kernel at coincident points are available in particular manifolds Bytsenko:1996bc ; Camporesi:1990wm , and the coefficients of the expansion have been computed to rather high orders in several setups, including curved spaces with and without boundary, and in presence of non Abelian gauge fields and non Abelian scalar fields, using different methods Ball:1989xg ; Bel'kov:1996tn ; vandeVen:1998pf ; Moss:1999wq ; Fliegner:1998rk ; Avramidi:1991je ; Gusynin:1989ky . In this work we deal with the extension of these results to finite temperature in flat space-time.

As is well known, in the Matsubara formalism for quantum field theory at finite temperature, wave functions are required to be periodic for bosons and antiperiodic for fermions, with period $`\beta `$ (the inverse temperature) and the external fields are also periodic. This introduces a compactified Euclidean time Landsman:1987uw . The heat kernel can be regarded as the evolution operator (in imaginary proper time $`\tau `$) of a first quantized particle Schwinger:1951nm , thus it admits a path integral representation, which at finite temperature must include also multiply connected paths in the compactified space-time. The standard results quoted e.g. in Ball:1989xg  for the heat kernel expansion refer to general smooth manifolds without boundary and thus, in principle, they would directly apply to finite temperature as well. However, the standard formulas are not sensitive to the compactification of time; they only sum paths which are topologically trivial (contractile to a point). Actually this correctly reproduces the analytical part in a strict expansion in powers of the proper time, but neglects the exponentially suppressed finite temperature contributions Actor:1994xq . To see any temperature effect in the heat kernel expansion it is necessary to include also the paths that wind once or more around the compactified time. This is automatically achieved in the canonical formalism by replacing the continuous energy variable by the discrete Matsubara frequencies. More generally, as already argued in Garcia-Recio:2000gt  (see also Deser:2002vx ), in the presence of gauge fields, finite temperature effects are tied to the presence of the (untraced) Polyakov loop

$$\mathrm{\Omega }(x)=T\mathrm{exp}\left(_{x_0}^{x_0+\beta }A_0(x_0^{},𝒙)𝑑x_0^{}\right)$$
(1)
($`T`$ refers to temporal ordering, this is required to allow for the non Abelian case). The presence of $`\mathrm{\Omega }(x)`$ is to be expected on general grounds. Let us regard the heat kernel at finite temperature as the evolution operator of a first quantized particle. The space-time manifold defines a $`d`$-dimensional cylinder which plays of role of space for the particle and $`i\tau `$ is the time. If the circulation of the “vector potential” $`A_\mu `$ around the cylinder is non vanishing this signals the presence of an Aharanov-Bohm magnetic flux through its interior, which will affect the propagation. The particle will pick up a phase $`\mathrm{\Omega }(x)`$ after looping once around the cylinder (in the general case a non Abelian phase Wu:1975vq ).

A computation of the thermal heat kernel coefficients was presented in Boschi-Filho:1992ah  where a common renormalization for all the coefficients, $`a_n^T=f(\tau /\beta ^2)a_n`$, was found. However, because the temperature effects account for the fact that Euclidean time is compact, an explicit breaking of Lorentz invariance is expected and the previous factorization cannot hold in general (see e.g. Actor:2000hc ). The former computation refers to flat space-time (without boundaries) and non Abelian scalar and gauge fields. In Xu:1993qi  a similar study is presented where curvature is allowed but fields are assumed to be static. These authors find that $`f(\tau /\beta ^2)a_n`$ is augmented with new terms that break Lorentz symmetry, so-called anomalous terms also found in Nakazawa:1985zq . However both calculations are incomplete since they are in conflict with results for Abelian and stationary configurations (in flat space) presented in Actor:2000hc . There it is shown that the Euclidean scalar potential $`A_0(𝒙)`$ can appear in the heat kernel (outside covariant derivatives) provided that it does so as a periodic variable with period $`2\pi /\beta `$, to be consistent with (large) gauge invariance. This is a particular manifestation of the relevance of the Polyakov loop.

We present here the first systematic calculation of the heat kernel expansion at finite temperature at coincident points (in flat space without boundaries) for general backgrounds which may be non Abelian and non stationary. The result is gauge covariant and depends locally on the covariant derivatives and the Polyakov loop. The Klein-Gordon operator to be considered is of the type $`K=MD_\mu ^2`$, where $`D_\mu =_\mu +A_\mu (x)`$ is the gauge covariant derivative and $`M(x)`$ is a Lorentz scalar. Both $`A_\mu (x)`$ and $`M(x)`$ are allowed to be matrices in some internal space (the treatment applies to Abelian and non Abelian theories). One can form local and gauge covariant operators by combining the basic operators $`M`$, $`F_{\mu \nu }=[D_\mu ,D_\nu ]`$ and their covariant derivatives, e.g. $`𝒪=F_{\mu \nu }𝒟_\mu 𝒟_\nu M`$, where $`𝒟_\mu X`$ stands for $`[D_\mu ,X]`$. The local operators can be classified according to their mass dimension. For each dimension there is a finite number of them. At zero temperature, under suitable regularity conditions, one can asymptotically expand an expression of the form $`x|f(K)|x`$ as a sum of local operators, i.e.

$$x|f(K)|x=\underset{r}{}f_r𝒪_r(x),$$
(2)
$`𝒪_r`$ denotes a linear basis including all possible local operators and $`f_r`$ are some numerical coefficients which depend on the function $`f`$. In particular, for the matrix elements of the heat kernel at coincident points one obtains the familiar Seeley-DeWitt asymptotic expansion

$$x|e^{\tau K}|x=(4\pi \tau )^{d/2}\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}a_n(x)\tau ^n,$$
(3)
$`d`$ being the space-time dimension. The local operators $`a_n(x)`$ themselves do not depend on $`d`$ or $`\tau `$ and have mass dimension $`2n`$. Of course, once one has the expansion for the heat kernel, the use of integral representations Schwinger:1951nm  allows to obtain the expansion for other functions $`f(K)`$, such as the $`\zeta `$-function Hawking:1977ja ; Seeley:1967ea , the effective action, the resolvent or the effective current, without a new computation.

At finite temperature, because the Euclidean time coordinate is compactified, one can expect to expand $`x|f(K)|x`$ in terms of operators which are local regarding the spatial coordinates but not in the time coordinate Dunne:1997yb . Nevertheless, the following asymptotic expansion still holds Garcia-Recio:2000gt

$$x|f(K)|x=\underset{r}{}f_r(\mathrm{\Omega }(x))𝒪_r(x).$$
(4)
That is, at finite temperature the numerical coefficients $`f_r`$ become functions of the Polyakov loop $`\mathrm{\Omega }(x)`$. This result is remarkable on several accounts. First, although full space-time locality does not hold at finite temperature, still the result looks space-time local if written in terms of the field $`\mathrm{\Omega }(x)`$ and the other local operators. (Note that $`\mathrm{\Omega }(x)`$ is local regarding gauge transformations.) Second, full gauge covariance (the covariance under continuous local similarity transformations in internal space) is manifest, since this property is shared by the Polyakov loop and the local operators. This is not always automatically true for other expansions; because the space-time is not simply connected in the imaginary time formalism, in addition to the usual topologically small gauge transformations there are also large transformations (i.e., not reachable by composition of infinitesimal ones). Covariance under such large transformations fails to hold, for instance, in simple-minded perturbation theory Dunne:1997yb ; Salcedo:2002pr .

In the non Abelian case $`\mathrm{\Omega }(x)`$ needs not commute with the other quantities. The fact that it appears to the left in (4) is a matter of choice (putting it to the right would yield a different set of functions $`f_r`$). We remark that the operators $`𝒪_r`$ are local and gauge covariant but not necessarily Lorentz invariant. That is, operators with different Lorentz indices may have different weights at finite temperature. Rotational invariance is of course preserved.

As we have argued above, for many purposes it is sufficient to consider the expansion for the heat kernel. At finite temperature the result can still be written as

$$x|e^{\tau K}|x=(4\pi \tau )^{d/2}\underset{n}{}a_n^T(x)\tau ^n.$$
(5)
The thermal heat kernel coefficients $`a_n^T`$ contain local operators, and depend on $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, $`\tau `$ and $`\beta `$, but not on $`d`$.

At finite temperature the heat kernel expansion consists actually of three expansions. One in powers of $`M`$, another in powers of $`𝒟_i`$, and finally another expansion in powers of $`𝒟_0`$. The first two expansions are standard and no different to those done at zero temperature, but the expansion in $`𝒟_0`$ is tricky and has to be carried out with care. This is because a naive expansion in temporal derivatives is in conflict with gauge invariance. This is easy to understand by noting that the derivative expansion refers to external fields with very wide profiles. Whereas this is unproblematic in the spatial direction, the situation in the temporal direction is different since the Euclidean time is periodic and dilatations in the temporal direction break the periodicity condition.

For the calculation we use the method of symbols which is based on the identity Salcedo:1996qy ; Salcedo:1998sv

$$x|f(D_\mu ,M)|x=\frac{1}{\beta }\underset{p_0}{}\frac{d^{d1}p}{(2\pi )^{d1}}x|f(D_\mu +ip_\mu ,M)|0.$$
(6)
$`f(D_\mu ,M)`$ is any (ultraviolet finite) operator constructed out of $`D_\mu `$ and $`M`$, and $`|0`$ is the zero momentum state, $`x|0=1`$. In practice this means that $`_\mu `$ in $`D_\mu `$ vanishes when it reaches the right end, and the brackets $`x||0`$ are often not explicit. An application of the symbols method formula in the temporal direction only, gives

$`x|e^{\tau K}|x`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\beta }}{\displaystyle \underset{p_0}{}}𝒙|e^{\tau (MQ^2D_i^2)}|𝒙,`$
$`Q`$ $`=`$ $`ip_0+D_0.`$ (7)
For the spatial part we can directly use the known heat kernel expansion at zero temperature Ball:1989xg ; Bel'kov:1996tn  on the effective $`(d1)`$-dimensional Klein-Gordon operator $`(MQ^2)D_i^2`$. The operators $`Q`$ are then moved to the left generating commutators of the form $`[Q,]`$. These commutators are just $`𝒟_0=[D_0,]`$ since $`p_0`$ is a c-number. The $`Q`$’s not in commutators, placed at the left of the expressions so obtained, come in the form $`Q^ne^{\tau Q^2}`$ (cf. (11)). The final step is to use the operator identity Garcia-Recio:2000gt

$$e^{\beta D_0}=e^{\beta _0}\mathrm{\Omega }(x).$$
(8)
Because all external fields are periodic, $`e^{\beta _0}=1`$ and $`e^{\beta D_0}`$ is equivalent to $`\mathrm{\Omega }(x)`$. In this way the operator $`Q`$ defined in (7) reduces to a function of $`x`$

$$Q=ip_0\frac{1}{\beta }\mathrm{log}(\mathrm{\Omega }).$$
(9)
An explicit computation gives, up to operators of mass dimension four 111Further details, as well as the rather long coefficients $`a_{5/2}^T`$ and $`a_3^T`$, will be presented elsewhere Megias:2003prep .,

$`a_0^T`$ $`=`$ $`\phi _0`$
$`a_1^T`$ $`=`$ $`\phi _0M`$ (10)
$`a_{3/2}^T`$ $`=`$ $`\phi _1\left(M_0{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}E_{ii}\right)`$
$`a_2^T`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\phi _0+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\phi _2\right)M_{00}`$
$`+\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}\phi _0+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\phi _2\right)E_{0ii}+\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\phi _0+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\phi _2\right)E_i^2`$
$`+\phi _0\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}M^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}M_{ii}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{12}}F_{ij}^2\right).`$
In these formulas $`E_i=F_{0i}`$ is the electric field and we use the convenient notation $`M_{\mu \nu }=𝒟_\mu 𝒟_\nu M`$, $`E_{\mu i}=𝒟_\mu E_i`$, etc. The quantities $`\phi _n`$ are functions of $`\mathrm{\Omega }(x)`$ and the ratio $`\tau /\beta ^2`$, namely

$`\phi _n(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(4\pi \tau )^{1/2}}{\beta }}{\displaystyle \underset{p_0}{}}\tau ^{n/2}Q^ne^{\tau Q^2}.`$ (11)
Here, $`Q`$ given in (9) and $`p_0`$ runs over the Matsubara frequencies, $`2\pi k/\beta `$ ($`k`$ integer) for bosons and $`2\pi (k+\frac{1}{2})/\beta `$ for fermions. Consequently, there are bosonic and fermionic versions for each function $`\phi _n`$, related through the replacement $`\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }`$. The $`\phi _n`$’s are related to the special functions $`\theta _3`$ and $`\theta _4`$ and their derivatives Abramowitz:1970bk .

The first thing to note is that, due to the summation over $`p_0`$, the $`\phi _n(\mathrm{\Omega })`$’s are one-valued functions of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and so gauge invariance is preserved. (The quantity $`\mathrm{log}\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is covariant under small gauge transformations but many-valued under large ones.) Actually, if we use Poisson’s summation formula for, say, the function $`\phi _0`$ we obtain

$$\phi _0(\mathrm{\Omega })=\underset{k}{}\mathrm{\Omega }^ke^{k^2\beta ^2/4\tau }\text{(bosonic)}.$$
(12)
Second, we note that the expansion contains coefficients of half-integer order with local operators of odd dimension. Due to the property $`\phi _n(\mathrm{\Omega })=(1)^n\phi _n(\mathrm{\Omega }^1)`$ the symmetry under $`D_0D_0`$, which is manifest in the Klein-Gordon operator, is preserved. Odd dimensional terms vanish at zero temperature except in presence of boundaries McAvity:1991we . One of the techniques to deal with boundaries is the method of images. The path integral method suggests that the presence of these terms at finite temperature can also be understood from the fact that the particle sees its own image from its periodic replicas.

In the zero temperature limit the functions $`\phi _n`$ become constant. For even $`n`$, they take the values $`(\frac{1}{2})^{n/2}(n1)!!`$ and vanish for odd $`n`$. It is easy to verify that the thermal coefficients reproduce the zero temperature ones in this limit and Lorentz invariance is restored. As illustrated in (12) the low temperature or low $`\tau `$ corrections are exponentially suppressed in $`a_n^T`$.

The thermal coefficients have been collected according to the mass dimension of the local operators. At zero temperature this is equivalent to an expansion in powers of $`\tau `$, but at finite temperature it corresponds to expand in powers of $`\tau `$ keeping $`\tau /\beta ^2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ constant. Due to the exponential suppression, a strict expansion in $`\tau `$ for fixed $`\beta `$ would yield just the zero temperature result. (This accounts for the well known fact that ultraviolet divergences and anomalies are temperature independent Dolan:1974qd .)

Also useful is the expansion of the trace of the heat kernel operator $`\text{Tr}(e^{\tau K})=_n\tau ^nd^dx\text{tr}(b_n^T)`$. To mass dimension six we find

$`b_0^T`$ $`=`$ $`\phi _0`$
$`b_1^T`$ $`=`$ $`\phi _0M`$
$`b_2^T`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\phi _0M^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\phi _2E_i^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{12}}\phi _0F_{ij}^2`$
$`b_{5/2}^T`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}\phi _1\{M_i,E_i\}`$ (13)
$`b_3^T`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}\phi _0M^3+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}\phi _2M_0^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{12}}\phi _0M_i^2`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\phi _2E_iME_i\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{12}}\phi _0+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\phi _2+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{15}}\phi _4\right)E_{0i}^2`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{30}}\phi _2E_{ii}^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{30}}\phi _2F_{0ij}^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{15}}\phi _2E_iF_{ij}E_j`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{12}}\phi _0F_{ij}MF_{ij}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{60}}\phi _0F_{iij}^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{90}}\phi _0F_{ij}F_{jk}F_{ki}.`$
As is well known, the expression for $`b_n^T`$ is intrinsically not unique due to integration by parts and the trace cyclic property. At zero temperature these operations do not mix different orders, but at finite temperature this is no longer true since the commutators (in particular covariant derivatives) of $`\mathrm{\Omega }(x)`$ generate dimensional terms Megias:2003prep . This explains why, e.g. $`b_{3/2}^T`$ vanishes although $`\text{Tr}(a_{3/2}^T)`$ is not identically zero. Of course, the trace of the heat kernel itself is unique and the ambiguity amounts to a reorganization of the asymptotic expansion (no such ambiguity exists for the $`a_n^T`$). The heat kernel is symmetric under transposition $`ABC\mathrm{}\mathrm{}CBA`$ and this symmetry is manifest in the $`b_n^T`$ (using the cyclic property). It can be noted that, exactly as in the zero temperature case Ball:1989xg , the coefficients $`a_n^T`$ can be obtained from the $`b_n^T`$ through functional derivation with respect to $`M(x)`$.

In addition to the explicit formulas, one of the interesting results of this calculation is of qualitative type, namely, the operators appearing in the coefficients $`a_n^T`$ or $`b_n^T`$ can be grouped according to the weights $`\phi _k`$. This indicates a definite pattern of Lorentz symmetry breaking at finite temperature (even in the absence of scalar potential). This pattern will manifest itself in applications such as those to renormalization group flow at finite temperature Schaefer:1999em , the general form of the chiral perturbation theory effective Lagrangian at finite temperature, etc.

The fundamental role played by the Polyakov loop is further illustrated by considering the trivially solvable case of a homogeneous relativistic quantum gas. In the absence of external fields (other than a mass $`m`$), the lowest order term $`b_0^T=\phi _0`$ is sufficient to obtain the effective action and so the grand canonical potential ($`e^{\tau m^2}`$ exactly factorizes out of the heat kernel)222The effects of external fields can be included through higher orders in the heat kernel expansion.. A simple integral transform to pass from the exponential to the logarithm function reproduces the standard result, with distribution function $`(e^{\beta (\omega _k\mu )}1)^1(e^{\beta (\omega _k+\mu )}1)^1`$ (for bosons) Haber:1981fg . We want to emphasize the relation between the chemical potential $`\mu `$ and the Polyakov loop $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. The chemical potential couples as a constant additive term in the scalar potential. Because it is constant, $`\mu `$ does not contribute to the local operators, since there $`A_0(x)`$ only appears through the covariant derivative $`𝒟_0`$. If the Polyakov loop were absent in the formulas, $`\mu `$ would not appear at all in the partition function. An obviously incorrect result. It is also noteworthy that the periodic dependence of the heat kernel on $`\mathrm{log}\mathrm{\Omega }`$ implies the well known fact that the partition function is periodic in $`\beta \mu `$ with period $`2\pi i`$ (a consistency condition due to its coupling to the quantized charge operator). The Polyakov loop thus appears as a generalization of the factor $`e^{\beta \mu }`$ to non constant and non Abelian gauge fields. In curved space-times, in addition to the Polyakov loop of the gauge connection $`A_\mu `$, there is a Polyakov loop tied to the parallel transport connection $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu `$, with consequences in field theory in presence of gravitational fields.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work is supported in part by funds provided by the Spanish DGI with grant no. BFM2002-03218, and Junta de Andalucía grant no. FQM-225.