 Heat equation maximum principle

On a closed manifold with a Riemannian metric, the minimum of a smooth heat solution cannot fall below its initial minimum. At a spatial minimum, $\Delta u\le 0$ for the positive Laplace-Beltrami operator. Adding a small increasing function of time and considering the first crossing gives the assertion. Applying the result to nonnegative initial functions shows that the Riemannian heat kernel is nonnegative.