Maximum principle for semi-elliptic trace operators and geometric applications

Abstract: Based on ideas of L. Al\'ias, D. Impera and M. Rigoli developed in "Hypersurfaces of constant higher order mean curvature in warped products", we develope a fairly general weak/Omori-Yau maximum principle for trace operators. We apply this version of maximum principle to generalize several higher order mean curvature estimates and to give an extension of Alias-Impera-Rigoli Slice Theorem