Conghan Dong

The Penrose conjecture for initial data sets satisfying a $2$-convexity condition

Let $(M^3, g, \mathbf{k})$ be a smooth, connected, asymptotically flat initial data set with connected outermost past apparent horizon $\Sigma $. We prove the Penrose conjecture, namely that $m_{\mathrm{ADM}}(g) \geq \sqrt{\frac{|\Sigma |}{16 \pi }} $, under the assumptions of the dominant energy condition and the $2$-convexity condition that the sum of the two smallest eigenvalues of $\mathbf{k}$ is nonnegative. The main tool is the $\sigma $-inverse mean curvature flow, together with a monotonicity formula developed in \cite{Dong26SigmaIMCF}.