Uniqueness on average of large isoperimetric sets in noncompact manifolds with nonnegative Ricci curvature

Gioacchino Antonelli, Marco Pozzetta, Daniele Semola

Published 2024-06-11Version 1

Let $(M^n,g)$ be a complete Riemannian manifold which is not isometric to $\mathbb{R}^n$, has nonnegative Ricci curvature, Euclidean volume growth, and quadratic Riemann curvature decay. We prove that there is a set $\mathcal{G}\subset (0,\infty)$ with density $1$ at infinity such that for every $V\in \mathcal{G}$ there is a unique isoperimetric set of volume $V$ in $M$, and its boundary is strictly volume preserving stable. The latter result cannot be improved to uniqueness or strict stability for every large volume. Indeed, we construct a complete Riemannian surface that satisfies the previous assumptions, and with the following property: there are arbitrarily large and diverging intervals $I_n\subset (0,\infty)$ such that isoperimetric sets with volumes $V\in I_n$ exist, but they are neither unique nor they have strictly volume preserving stable boundaries. The proof relies on a set of new ideas, as the present setting goes beyond the range of applicability of the methods based on the implicit function theorem, and no symmetry is assumed.