Minimal hypersurfaces with bounded index

We prove a structural theorem that provides a precise local picture of how a sequence of closed embedded minimal hypersurfaces with uniformly bounded index (and volume if the ambient dimension is greater than three) in a Riemannian manifold ( M n , g ) , 3 ≤ n ≤ 7 , can degenerate. Loosely speaking, our results show that embedded minimal hypersurfaces with bounded index behave qualitatively like embedded stable minimal hypersurfaces, up to controlled errors. Several compactness/finiteness theorems follow from our local picture.