All known examples of homogeneous Einstein metrics of negative Ricci curvature can be realized as left-invariant Riemannian metrics on solvable Lie groups. After defining a notion of maximal symmetry among left-invariant Riemannian metrics on a Lie group, we prove that any left-invariant Einstein metric of negative Ricci curvature on a solvable Lie group is maximally symmetric. This theorem is motivated both by the Alekseevskii Conjecture and by the question of stability of Einstein metrics under the Ricci flow. We also address questions of existence of maximally symmetric left-invariant Riemannian metrics more generally.

We prove the existence of the flow by curvature of regular planar networks starting from an initial network which is non-regular. The proof relies on a monotonicity formula for expanding solutions and a local regularity result for the network flow in the spirit of B. White’s local regularity theorem for mean curvature flow. We also show a pseudolocality theorem for mean curvature flow in any codimension, assuming only that the initial submanifold can be locally written as a graph with sufficiently small Lipschitz constant.

Conformal invariance of two-dimensional variational problems is a condition known to enable a blow-up analysis of solutions and to deduce the removability of singularities. In this paper, we identify another condition that is not only sufficient, but also necessary for such a removability of singularities. This is the validity of the Pohozaev identity. In situations where such an identity fails to hold, we introduce a new quantity, called the Pohozaev constant, which on one hand measures the extent to which the Pohozaev identity fails and, on the other hand, provides a characterization of the singular behavior of a solution at an isolated singularity. We apply this to the blow-up analysis for super-Liouville type equations on Riemann surfaces with conical singularities, because in the presence of such singularities, conformal invariance no longer holds and a local singularity is in general non-removable unless the Pohozaev constant is vanishing.

For $n$-dimensional central affine curve flows, we

1) solve the Cauchy problem with periodic initial data and with initial data having rapidly decaying central affine curvatures,

2) construct Bäcklund transformations, a Permutability formula, and explicit solutions,

3) write down formulas for the Bi-Hamiltonian structure and conservation laws.