In this paper, we prove that any Kähler Ricci shrinker surface has bounded sectional curvature. Combining this estimate with earlier work by many authors, we provide a complete classification of all Kähler Ricci shrinker surfaces.
While there may be many Thurston metric geodesics between a pair of points in Teichm\"uller space, we find that by imposing an additional energy minimization constraint on the geodesics, thought of as limits of harmonic map rays, we select a unique Thurston geodesic through those points. Extending the target surface to the Thurston boundary yields, for each point $Y$ in Teichm\"uller space, an "exponential map" of rays from that point $Y$ onto Teichm\"uller space with visual boundary the Thurston boundary of Teichm\"uller space. We first depict harmonic map ray structures on Teichm\"uller space as a geometric transition between Teichm\"uller ray structures and Thurston geodesic ray structures. In particular, by appropriately degenerating the source of a harmonic map between hyperbolic surfaces (along "harmonic map dual rays"), the harmonic map rays through the target converge to a Thurston geodesic; by appropriately degenerating the target of the harmonic map, those harmonic map dual rays through the domain converge to Teichm\"uller geodesics. We then extend this transition to one from Teichm\"uller disks through Hopf differential disks to stretch-earthquake disks. These results apply to surfaces with boundary, resolving a question on stretch maps between such surfaces.
The multi-bubble isoperimetric conjecture in $n$-dimensional Euclidean and spherical spaces from the 1990's asserts that standard bubbles uniquely minimize total perimeter among all $q-1$ bubbles enclosing prescribed volume, for any $q \leq n+2$. The double-bubble conjecture on $\mathbb{R}^3$ was confirmed in 2000 by Hutchings-Morgan-Ritor\'e-Ros, and is nowadays fully resolved for all $n \geq 2$. The double-bubble conjecture on $\mathbb{S}^2$ and triple-bubble conjecture on $\mathbb{R}^2$ have also been resolved, but all other cases are in general open. We confirm the conjecture on $\mathbb{R}^n$ and on $\mathbb{S}^n$ for all $q \leq \min(5,n+1)$, namely: the double-bubble conjectures for $n \geq 2$, the triple-bubble conjectures for $n \geq 3$ and the quadruple-bubble conjectures for $n \geq 4$. In fact, we show that for all $q \leq n+1$, a minimizing cluster necessarily has spherical interfaces, and after stereographic projection to $\mathbb{S}^n$, its cells are obtained as the Voronoi cells of $q$ affine-functions, or equivalently, as the intersection with $\mathbb{S}^n$ of convex polyhedra in $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$. Moreover, the cells (including the unbounded one) are necessarily connected and intersect a common hyperplane of symmetry, resolving a conjecture of Heppes. We also show for all $q \leq n+1$ that a minimizer with non-empty interfaces between all pairs of cells is necessarily a standard bubble. The proof makes crucial use of considering $\mathbb{R}^n$ and $\mathbb{S}^n$ in tandem and of M\"obius geometry and conformal Killing fields; it does not rely on establishing a PDI for the isoperimetric profile as in the Gaussian setting, which seems out of reach in the present one.
