A splitting theorem for capillary graphs under Ricci lower bounds

Abstract

In this paper, we study capillary graphs defined on a domain $\Omega$ of a complete Riemannian manifold $M$, where a graph is said to be capillary if it has constant mean curvature and locally constant Dirichlet and Neumann conditions on $\partial \Omega$. Our main result is a splitting theorem both for $\Omega$ and for the graph function on a class of manifolds with nonnegative Ricci curvature. As a corollary, we classify capillary graphs over domains that are globally Lipschitz epigraphs or slabs in a product space $M = N \times \mathbb{R}$, where $N$ has slow volume growth and non-negative Ricci curvature, including the case $M = \mathbb{R}^2,\mathbb{R}^3$. A technical core of the paper is a new gradient estimate for positive CMC graphs on manifolds with Ricci lower bounds.