Mass-Capacity Rigidity for Asymptotically Flat Manifolds with Arbitrary Ends

Abstract

We characterize equality in the mass-capacity inequality for asymptotically flat manifolds with arbitrary ends in every dimension \(n\ge 3\). If \(u\) is the capacity minimizer, then the equality forces \((M,u^{4/(n-2)}g)\) to be isometric to \((\mathbb R^n\setminus S, g_{\mathrm{Euc}})\) for a compact set \(S\) satisfying \(\operatorname{dim}_{\mathcal H}S\le (n-2)/2\). A key ingredient is that conformal changes by positive harmonic functions transform nonnegative Ricci curvature into nonnegative Bakry--\'Emery Ricci curvature of effective dimension \(4-n\).