Volume of minimal hypersurfaces in manifolds with nonnegative Ricci curvature

Abstract

We establish a min-max estimate on the volume width of a closed Riemannian manifold with nonnegative Ricci curvature. More precisely, we show that every closed Riemannian manifold with nonnegative Ricci curvature admits a PL Morse function whose level set volume is bounded in terms of the volume of the manifold. As a consequence of this sweep-out estimate, there exists an embedded, closed (possibly singular) minimal hypersurface whose volume is bounded in terms of the volume of the manifold.