Hessian curvature hypersurfaces with prescribed Gauss image

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate Hessian curvature hypersurfaces with prescribed Gauss images. Given geodesically strictly convex bounded domains $\Omega$ in ${\mathbb{R}}^n$ and $\tilde{\Omega }$ in the unit hemisphere, we prove that there is a strictly convex graphic hypersurface defined in $\Omega$ with prescribed $k$-Hessian curvatures such that its Gauss image is $\tilde{\Omega }$. Our proof relies on a novel $C^2$ boundary estimate which utilizes the orthogonal invariance of hypersurfaces. Indeed, we employ some special vector fields generated by the infinitesimal rotations in ${\mathbb{R}}^{n+1}$ to establish the boundary $C^2$ estimates. This new approach enables us to handle the additional negative terms that arise when taking second order derivatives near the boundary.