A note on the strong maximum principle for fully nonlinear equations on Riemannian manifolds

Abstract

We investigate strong maximum (and minimum) principles for fully nonlinear second order equations on Riemannian manifolds that are non-totally degenerate and satisfy appropriate scaling conditions. Our results apply to a large class of nonlinear operators, among which Pucci's extremal operators, some singular operators like those modeled on the $p$- and $\infty$-Laplacian, and mean curvature type problems. As a byproduct, we establish new strong comparison principles for some second order uniformly elliptic problems when the manifold has nonnegative sectional curvature.