Geometric characterizations of asymptotically hyperbolic Riemannian 3-manifolds by the existence of a suitable CMC-foliation

Abstract

In 1996, Huisken-Yau proved that every three-dimensional Riemannian manifold can be uniquely foliated near infinity by stable closed surfaces of constant mean curvature (CMC) if it is asymptotically equal to the (spatial) Schwarzschild solution. Using their method, Rigger proved the same theorem for Riemannian manifolds being asymptotically equal to the (spatial) (Schwarzschild-)Anti-de Sitter solution. This was generalized to asymptotically hyperbolic manifolds by Neves-Tian, Chodosh, and the author at a later stage. In this work, we prove the reverse implication as the author already did in the Euclidean setting, i.e. any three-dimensional Riemannian manifold is asymptotically hyperbolic if it (and only if) possesses a CMC-cover satisfying certain geometric curvature estimates, a uniqueness property, and each surface has controlled instability. As toy application of these geometric characterizations of asymptotically Euclidean and hyperbolic manifolds, we present a method for replacing an asymptotically hyperbolic by an asymptotically Euclidean end and apply this method to prove that the Hawking mass of the CMC-surfaces is bounded by their limit being the total mass of the asymptotically hyperbolic manifold, where equality holds only for the t=0-slice of the (Schwarzschild-)Anti-de Sitter spacetime.