The main results of this paper consists of two parts. Firstly, we obtain an almost rigidity theorem which says that on a RCD(0, N) space, when a domain between two level sets of a distance function has almost maximal volume compared to that of a cylinder, then this portion is close to a cylinder as a metric space. Secondly, we apply this almost rigidity theorem to study noncompact RCD(0, N) spaces with linear volume growth. More precisely, we obtain the sublinear growth of diameter of geodesic spheres, and study the non-existence of harmonic functions with polynomial growth on such RCD(0,N) spaces.
Since non-compact RCD(0, N) spaces have at least linear volume growth, we study noncompact RCD(0, N) spaces with linear volume growth in this paper. One of the main results is that the diameter of level sets of a Busemann function grow at most linearly on a noncompact RCD(0, N) space satisfying the linear volume growth condition. Another main result in this paper is a splitting theorem at the noncompact end for a RCD(0, N) space with strongly minimal volume growth. These results generalize some theorems on noncompact manifolds with nonnegative Ricci curvature to non-smooth settings.
Let $(M,d,\mathfrak{m})$ be a noncompact $\texttt{RCD}(0,N)$ space with $N\in\mathbb{N}_+$ and $\text{supp}\mathfrak{m}=M$. We prove that if the first Betti number of $M$ equals $N-1$, then $(M,d,\mathfrak{m})$ is either a flat Riemannian $N$-manifold with a soul $T^{N-1}$ or the metric product $[0,\infty)\times T^{N-1}$, both with the measure a multiple of the Riemannian volume, where $T^{N-1}$ is a flat torus.
We consider a rigidity problem for the spectral gap of the Laplacian on an $RCD(K,\infty)$-space (a metric measure space satisfying the Riemannian curvature-dimension condition) for positive $K$. For a weighted Riemannian manifold, Cheng--Zhou showed that the sharp spectral gap is achieved only when a $1$-dimensional Gaussian space is split off. This can be regarded as an infinite-dimensional counterpart to Obata's rigidity theorem. Generalizing to $RCD(K,\infty)$-spaces is not straightforward due to the lack of smooth structure and doubling condition. We employ the lift of an eigenfunction to…
For $n$-dimensional Riemannian manifolds $M$ with Ricci curvature bounded below by $-(n-1)$, the volume entropy is bounded above by $n-1$. If $M$ is compact, it is known that the equality holds if and only if $M$ is hyperbolic. We extend this result to $\mathsf{RCD}^{\ast}(-(N-1),N)$ spaces. While the upper bound is straightforward, the rigidity case is quite involved due to the lack of a smooth structure in $\mathsf{RCD}^{\ast}$ spaces. As an application we obtain an almost rigidity result which partially recovers a result by Cheng-Rong-Xu for Riemannian manifolds.
The volume entropy of a compact metric measure space is known to be the exponential growth rate of the measure lifted to its universal cover at infinity. For a compact Riemannian $n$-manifold with a negative lower Ricci curvature bound and a upper diameter bound, it was known that it admits an almost maximal volume entropy if and only if it is diffeomorphic and Gromov-Hausdorff close to a hyperbolic space form. We prove the quantitative rigidity of almost maximal volume entropy for $\operatorname{RCD}$-spaces with a negative lower Ricci curvature bound and Riemannian manifolds with a negative …
We prove splitting theorems for mean convex open subsets in RCD (Riemannian curvature-dimension) spaces that extend results by Kasue, Croke and Kleiner for Riemannian manifolds with boundary to a non-smooth setting. A corollary is for instance Frankel's theorem. Then, we prove that our notion of mean curvature bounded from below for the boundary of an open subset is stable w.r.t. to uniform convergence of the corresponding boundary distance function. We apply this to prove almost rigidity theorems for uniform domains whose boundary has a lower mean curvature bound.
In \cite{CC1}, Cheeger-Colding considered manifolds with lower Ricci curvature bound and gave some almost rigidity results about warped products including almost metric cone rigidity and quantitative splitting theorem. As a generalization of manifolds with lower Ricci curvature bound, for metric measure spaces in $RCD(K, N)$, $1<N<\infty$, splitting theorem \cite{Gi13} and "volume cone implies metric cone" rigidity for balls and annuluses of a point \cite{PG} have been proved. In this paper we will generalize Cheeger-Colding's \cite{CC1} result about "almost volume cone implies almost metric c…
Gradient steady Ricci solitons are natural generalizations of Ricci-flat manifolds. In this article, we prove a curvature gap theorem for gradient steady Ricci solitons with nonconstant potential functions; and a curvature gap theorem for Ricci-flat manifolds, removing the volume growth assumptions in known results.
By means of a space-time Wasserstein control, we show the monotonicity of the W-entropy functional in time along heat flows on possibly singular metric measure spaces with non-negative Ricci curvature and a finite upper bound of dimension in an appropriate sense. The associated rigidity result on the rate of dissipation of the W-entropy is also proved. These extend known results even on weighted Riemannian manifolds in some respects. In addition, we reveal that some singular spaces will exhibit the rigidity models while only the Euclidean space does in the class of smooth weighted Riemannian m…
We generalize to the ${\rm RCD}(0,N)$ setting a family of monotonicity formulas by Colding and Minicozzi for positive harmonic functions in Riemannian manifolds with non-negative Ricci curvature. Rigidity and almost rigidity statements are also proven, the second appearing to be new even in the smooth setting. Motivated by the recent work in [AFM] we also introduce the notion of electrostatic potential in ${\rm RCD}$ spaces, which also satisfies our monotonicity formulas. Our arguments are mainly based on new estimates for harmonic functions in ${\rm RCD}(K,N)$ spaces and on a new functional v…
In this paper the Gromov-Witten invariants on a class of noncompact symplectic manifolds are defined by combining Ruan-Tian's method with that of McDuff-Salamon. The main point of the arguments is to introduce a method dealing with the transversality problems in the case of noncompact manifolds. Moreover, the techniques are also used to study the topological rigidity of Hamiltonian loops with compact support on a class of noncompact symplectic manifolds.
Let $(M,g)$ be a noncompact complete $n$-manifold with harmonic curvature and positive Sobolev constant. Assume that $L_2$ norms of Weyl curvature and traceless Ricci curvature are finite. We prove that $(M,g)$ is Einstein if $n \ge 5$ and $L_{n/2}$ norms of Weyl curvature and traceless Ricci curvature are small enough.
We establish a structure theorem for minimizing sequences for the isoperimetric problem on noncompact $\mathsf{RCD}(K,N)$ spaces $(X,\mathsf{d},\mathcal{H}^N)$. Under the sole (necessary) assumption that the measure of unit balls is uniformly bounded away from zero, we prove that the limit of such a sequence is identified by a finite collection of isoperimetric regions possibly contained in pointed Gromov--Hausdorff limits of the ambient space $X$ along diverging sequences of points. The number of such regions is bounded linearly in terms of the measure of the minimizing sequence. The result f…
We will show that the quantitative maximal volume entropy rigidity holds on Alexandrov spaces. More precisely, given $N, D$, there exists $ε(N, D)>0$, such that for $ε<ε(N, D)$, if $X$ is an $N$-dimensional Alexandrov space with curvature $\geq -1$, $\operatorname{diam}(X)\leq D, h(X)\geq N-1-ε$, then $X$ is Gromov-Hausdorff close to a hyperbolic manifold. This result extends the quantitive maximal volume entropy rigidity of \cite{CRX} to Alexandrov spaces. And we will also give a quantitative maximal volume entropy rigidity for $\op{RCD}^*$-spaces in the non-collapsing case.
Let $(M,g)$ be a noncompact complete Bach-flat manifold with positive Yamabe constant. We prove that $(M,g)$ is flat if $(M, g)$ has zero scalar curvature and sufficiently small $L_{2}$ bound of curvature tensor. When $(M, g)$ has nonconstant scalar curvature, we prove that $(M, g)$ is conformal to the flat space if $(M, g)$ has sufficiently small $L_2$ bound of curvature tensor and $L_{4/3}$ bound of scalar curvature.
We prove that if $M$ is a closed $n$-dimensional Riemannian manifold, $n \ge 3$, with ${\rm Ric}\ge n-1$ and for which the optimal constant in the critical Sobolev inequality equals the one of the $n$-dimensional sphere $\mathbb{S}^n$, then $M$ is isometric to $\mathbb{S}^n$. An almost-rigidity result is also established, saying that if equality is almost achieved, then $M$ is close in the measure Gromov-Hausdorff sense to a spherical suspension. These statements are obtained in the ${\rm RCD}$-setting of (possibly non-smooth) metric measure spaces satisfying synthetic lower Ricci curvature bo…
We prove pointwise and $L^{p}$-gradient comparison results for solutions to elliptic Dirichlet problems defined on open subsets of a (possibly non-smooth) space with positive Ricci curvature (more precisely of an $\mathrm{RCD}(K,N)$ metric measure space, with $K>0$ and $N\in (1,\infty)$). The obtained Talenti-type comparison is sharp, rigid and stable with respect to $L^{2}$/measured-Gromov-Hausdorff topology; moreover, several aspects seem new even for smooth Riemannian manifolds. As applications of such Talenti-type comparison, we prove a series of improved Sobolev-type inequalities, and an …
In this paper we investigate the structure of certain solutions of the fully nonlinear Yamabe flow, which we call quotient almost Yamabe solitons because they extend quite naturally those called quotient Yamabe solitons. We then present sufficient conditions for a compact quotient almost Yamabe soliton to be either trivial or isometric with an Euclidean sphere. We also characterize noncompact quotient gradient almost Yamabe solitons satisfying certain conditions on both its Ricci tensor and potential function.
Let $(M,g)$ be a smooth Riemannian manifold and $\mathsf{G}$ a compact Lie group acting on $M$ effectively and by isometries. It is well known that a lower bound of the sectional curvature of $(M,g)$ is again a bound for the curvature of the quotient space, which is an Alexandrov space of curvature bounded below. Moreover, the analogous stability property holds for metric foliations and submersions. The goal of the paper is to prove the corresponding stability properties for synthetic Ricci curvature lower bounds. Specifically, we show that such stability holds for quotients of $\mathsf{RCD}^{…
We prove rigidity of any properly immersed noncompact Lagrangian shrinker with single valued Lagrangian angle for Lagrangian mean curvature flows. Our pointwise approach also provides an ele- mentary proof to the known rigidity results for graphical and almost graphical shrinkers of mean curvature flows.
We consider complete noncompact Riemannian manifolds with quadratically decaying lower Ricci curvature bounds and minimal volume growth. We first prove a rigidity result showing that ends with strongly minimal volume growth are isometric to warped product manifolds. Next we consider the almost rigid case in which manifolds with nonnegative and quadratically decaying lower Ricci curvature bounds have minimal volume growth. Compact regions in such manifolds are shown to be asymptotically close to warped products in the Gromov-Hausdorff topology. Manifolds with nonnegative Ricci curvature and lin…
We say that a Riemannian manifold M has rank at least k if every geodesic in M admits at least k parallel Jacobi fields. The Rank Rigidity Theorem of Ballmann and Burns-Spatzier, later generalized by Eberlein-Heber, states that a complete, irreducible, simply connected Riemannian manifold M of rank at least 2 (the higher rank assumption), whose isometry group satisfies the condition that the recurrent vectors are dense in the unit tangent bundle SM (the duality condition), is a symmetric space of noncompact type. This includes, for example, higher rank M which admit a finite volume quotient. W…
In this article, we generalize Eberlein's Rigidity Theorem to the singular case, namely, one of the spaces is only assumed to be a CAT(0) topological manifold. As a corollary, we get that any compact irreducible but locally reducible locally symmetric space of noncompact type does not admit a nonpositively curved (in the Aleksandrov sense) piecewise Euclidean structure. Any hyperbolic manifold, on the other hand, does admit such a structure.
In this paper, we define an energy-momentum vector at the spatial infinity of either asymptotically flat or asymptotically hyperbolic initial data sets carrying a non-compact boundary. Under suitable dominant energy conditions (DECs) imposed both on the interior and along the boundary, we prove the corresponding positive mass inequalities under the assumption that the underlying manifold is spin. In the asymptotically flat case, we also prove a rigidity statement when the energy-momentum vector is lightlike. Our treatment aims to underline both the common features and the differences between t…
We classify all closed, aspherical Riemannian manifolds M whose universal cover has indiscrete isometry group. One sample application is the theorem that any such M with word-hyperbolic fundamental group must be isometric to a negatively curved, locally symmetric manifold. Another application is the classification of all contractible Riemannian manifolds covering both compact and (noncompact, complete) finite volume manifold. There are also applications to the Hopf Conjecture, a new proof of Kazhdan's Conjecture (Frankel's Theorem) in complex geometry, etc. Ideas in the proof come from Lie the…
Based on properties of n-subharmonic functions we show that a complete, noncompact, properly embedded hypersurface with nonnegative Ricci curvature in hyperbolic space has an asymptotic boundary at infinity of at most two points. Moreover, the presence of two points in the asymptotic boundary is a rigidity condition that forces the hypersurface to be an equidistant hypersurface about a geodesic line in hyperbolic space. This gives an affirmative answer to the question raised by Alexander and Currier in 1990.
Let $M^n$ be a complete noncompact K$\ddot{a}$hler manifold of complex dimension $n$ with nonnegative holomorphic bisectional curvature. Denote by $\mathcal{O}$$_d(M^n)$ the space of holomorphic functions of polynomial growth of degree at most $d$ on $M^n$. In this paper we prove that $$dim_{\mathbb{C}}{\mathcal{O}}_d(M^n)\leq dim_{\mathbb{C}}{\mathcal{O}}_{[d]}(\mathbb{C}^n),$$ for all $d>0$, with equality for some positive integer $d$ if and only if $M^n$ is holomorphically isometric to $\mathbb{C}^n$. We also obtain sharp improved dimension estimates when its volume growth is not maximal or…
We show that noncompact simply connected harmonic manifolds with volume density $Θ_{p}(r) =\sinh ^{n-1} r$ is isometric to the real hyperbolic space and noncompact simply connected Kähler harmonic manifold with volume density $Θ_{p}(r) =\sinh ^{2n-1} r \cosh r$ is isometric to the complex hyperbolic space. A similar result is also proved for Quaternionic Kähler manifolds. Using our methods we get an alternative proof, without appealing to the powerful Cheeger-Gromoll splitting theorem, of the fact that every Ricci flat harmonic manifold is isometric to the euclidean space. Finally a rigidity r…
