Minimal Graphic Functions on Manifolds of Nonnegative Ricci Curvature

Abstract

We study minimal graphic functions on complete Riemannian manifolds ∑ with nonnegative Ricci curvature, euclidean volume growth, and quadratic curvature decay. We derive global bounds for the gradients for minimal graphic functions of linear growth only on one side. Then we can obtain a Liouville-type theorem with such growth via splitting for tangent cones of ∑ at infinity. When, in contrast, we do not impose any growth restrictions for minimal graphic functions, we also obtain a Liouville-type theorem under a certain nonradial Ricci curvature decay condition on ∑. In particular, the borderline for the Ricci curvature decay is sharp by our example in the last section. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.