We provide a general contractibility criterion for subsets of Riemannian metrics on the disc. For instance, this result applies to the space of metrics that have positive Gauss curvature and make the boundary circle convex (or geodesic). The same conclusion is not known in any dimension $n\geq 3$, and (by analogy with the closed case) is actually expected to be false for many values of $n\geq 4$.
We will show that for a polynomially contractible manifold of bounded geometry and of polynomial volume growth every coarse and rough cohomology class pairs continuously with the K-theory of the uniform Roe algebra. As an application we will discuss non-vanishing of rough index classes of Dirac operators over such manifolds, and we will furthermore get higher-codimensional index obstructions to metrics of positive scalar curvature on closed manifolds with virtually nilpotent fundamental groups. We will give a computation of the homology of (a dense, smooth subalgebra of) the uniform Roe algebr…
We consider a pseudo-Riemannian metric that changes signature along a smooth curve on a surface, called the discriminant curve. The discriminant curve separates the surface locally into a Riemannian and a Lorentzian domain. We study the local behaviour and properties of geodesics at a point on the discriminant where the isotropic direction is tangent to the discriminant curve.
We discuss Lie-Tresse theorem for the pseudogroup of diffeomorphisms acting on the space of (pseudo-)Riemannian metrics, and relate this to existence of Killing vector fields. Then we discuss the impact of symmetry in the general case.
We prove some estimates on the spectrum of the Laplacian of the total space of a Riemannian submersion in terms of the spectrum of the Laplacian of the base and the geometry of the fibers. When the fibers of the submersions are compact and minimal, we prove that the total space is discrete if and only if the base is discrete. When the fibers are not minimal, we prove a discreteness criterion for the total space in terms of the relative growth of the mean curvature of the fibers and the mean curvature of the geodesic spheres in the base. We discuss in particular the case of warped products.
The paper is devoted to the study of geodesic orbit Riemannian spaces that could be characterize by the property that any geodesic is an orbit of a 1-parameter group of isometries. In particular, we discuss some important totally geodesic submanifolds that inherit the property to be geodesic orbit. For a given geodesic orbit Riemannian space, we describe the structure of the nilradical and the radical of the Lie algebra of the isometry group. In the final part, we discuss some new tools to study geodesic orbit Riemannian spaces, related to compact Lie group representations with non-trivial pri…
Let $D$ be a Riemannian 2-disc of area $A$, diameter $d$ and length of the boundary $L$. We prove that it is possible to contract the boundary of $D$ through curves of length $\leq L + 200d\max\{1,\ln {\sqrt{A}\over d} \}$. This answers a twenty-year old question of S. Frankel and M. Katz, a version of which was asked earlier by M.Gromov. We also prove that a Riemannian $2$-sphere $M$ of diameter $d$ and area $A$ can be swept out by loops based at any prescribed point $p\in M$ of length $\leq 200 d\max\{1,\ln{\sqrt{A}\over d} \}$. This estimate is optimal up to a constant factor. In addition, …
I discuss geometry and normal forms for pseudo-Riemannian metrics with parallel spinor fields in some interesting dimensions. I also discuss the interaction of these conditions for parallel spinor fields with the condition that the Ricci tensor vanish (which, for pseudo-Riemannian manifolds, is not an automatic consequence of the existence of a nontrivial parallel spinor field).
In this paper, we present the classification of all possible signatures of the Ricci curvature of left-invariant Riemannian metrics on 4-dimensional Lie groups and discuss some related questions.
We present an approach to solvable pseudo-Riemannian symmetric spaces based on papers of M.Cahen, M.Parker and N.Wallach. Thereby we reproduce the classification of solvable symmetric triples of Lorentzian signature $(1,n-1)$ and complete the case of signature $(2,n-2)$. Moreover we discuss the topology of non-simply-connected symmetric spaces.
We discuss some geometric aspects of PSL(2,C), SL(2,C), and the space G of the geodesics of H^3 equipped with some suitable structures of Riemannian holomorphic manifolds of constant sectional curvature. We also observe that G is a symmetric space for the group PSL(2,C) and use it to deduce some correlations between their holomorphic Riemannian metrics.
Possible irreducible holonomy algebras $\g\subset\sp(2m,\Real)$ of odd Riemannian supermanifolds and irreducible subalgebras $\g\subset\gl(n,\Real)$ with non-trivial first skew-symmetric prolongations are classified. An approach to the classification of some classes of the holonomy algebras of Riemannian supermanifolds is discussed.
Let $(M,g)$ be an n-dimensional Riemannian manifold and $T^{*}M$ be its cotangent bundle equipped with a Riemannian metric of Cheeger Gromoll type which rescale the horizontal part by a nonzero differentiable function. The main purpose of the present paper is to discuss curvature properties of $T^{*}M$ and construct almost paracomplex Norden structures on $T^{*}M$. We investigate conditions for these structures to be para-Kähler (paraholomorphic) and quasi-Kähler. Also, some properties of almost paracomplex Norden structures in context of almost product Riemannian manifolds are presented.
In this paper, using connections between Clifford-Wolf isometries and Killing vector fields of constant length on a given Riemannian manifold, we classify simply connected Clifford-Wolf homogeneous Riemannian manifolds. We also get the classification of complete simply connected Riemannian manifolds with the Killing property defined and studied previously by J.E. D'Atri and H.K. Nickerson. In the last part of the paper we study properties of Clifford-Killing spaces, that is, real vector spaces of Killing vector fields of constant length, on odd-dimensional round spheres, and discuss numerous c…
A characterization of the proximal normal cone is obtained and a separation theorem for convex subsets of Riemannian manifolds is established. Moreover, the convexity of the distance function $d_S$ for a convex subset $S$ in the cases where the boundary of $S$ contains a geodesic segment, the boundary of $S$ is $C^2$ or the boundary of $S$ is not regular is discussed. Furthermore, a nonsmooth version of positive semi-definiteness of Hessian of convex functions on Riemannian manifolds is established.
It is proved that the holomorphic quadratic differential associated to CMC surfaces in Riemannian products $\mathbb{S}^2\times\Rr$ and $\mathbb{H}^2\times \Rr$ discovered by U. Abresch and H. Rosenberg could be obtained as a linear combination of usual Hopf differentials. Using this fact, we are able to extend it for Lorentzian products. Families of examples of helicoidal CMC surfaces on these spaces are explicitly described. We also present some characterizations of CMC rotationally invariant discs and spheres. Finally, after establish some height and area estimates, we prove the existence of…
We provide new proofs based on the Myers-Steenrod theorem to confirm that travel time data, travel time difference data and the broken scattering relations determine a simple Riemannian metric on a disc up to the natural gauge of a boundary fixing diffeomorphism. Our method of the proof leads to a Lipschitz-type stability estimate for the first two data sets in the class of simple metrics.
In this paper we provide two new characterizations of real hyperbolic $n$-space using the Poincaré exponent of a discrete group and the volume growth entropy. The first characterization is in the space of Hilbert metrics and generalizes a result of Crampon. The second is in the space of Riemannian metrics with Ricci curvature bounded below and generalizes a result of Ledrappier and Wang.
In this paper we give a spinorial representation of submanifolds of any dimension and codimension into Riemannian space forms in terms of the existence of so called generalized Killing spinors. We then discuss several applications, among them a new and concise proof of the fundamental theorem of submanifold theory. We also recover results of T. Friedrich, B. Morel and the authors in dimension 2 and 3.
For Riemannian submersions, we establish some estimates for the spectrum of the total space in terms of the spectrum of the base space and the geometry of the fibers. In particular, for Riemannian submersions of complete manifolds with closed fibers of bounded mean curvature, we show that the spectrum of the base space is discrete if and only if the spectrum of the total space is discrete.
This article gives an up-to-date account of the theory of discrete group actions on non-Riemannian homogeneous spaces. As an introduction of the motifs of this article, we begin by reviewing the current knowledge of possible global forms of pseudo-Riemannian manifolds with constant curvatures, and discuss what kind of problems we propose to pursue. For pseudo-Riemannian manifolds, isometric actions of discrete groups are not always properly discontinuous. The fundamental problem is to understand when discrete subgroups of Lie groups $G$ act properly discontinuously on homogeneous spaces $G/H$ …
Let $M$ be a complete, connected Riemannian surface and suppose that $\mathcal{S} \subset M$ is a discrete subset. What can we learn about $M$ from the knowledge of all distances in the surface between pairs of points of $\mathcal{S}$? We prove that if the distances in $\mathcal{S}$ correspond to the distances in a $2$-dimensional lattice, or more generally in an arbitrary net in $\mathbb{R}^2$, then $M$ is isometric to the Euclidean plane. We thus find that Riemannian embeddings of certain discrete metric spaces are rather rigid. A corollary is that a subset of $\mathbb{Z}^3$ that strictly co…
Given a Riemannian submersion, we study the relation between lambda constants introduced by G.Perelman on the base manifold and the total space of a Riemannian submersion. We also discuss the relationship between the first eigenvalues of Laplacians on the base manifold and that of the total space. The quantities on warped products are discussed in detail.
The diameter of a disc filling a loop in the universal covering of a Riemannian manifold may be measured extrinsically using the distance function on the ambient space or intrinsically using the induced length metric on the disc. Correspondingly, the diameter of a van Kampen diagram filling a word that represents the identity in a finitely presented group can either be measured intrinsically its 1-skeleton or extrinsically in the Cayley graph of the group. We construct the first examples of closed manifolds and finitely presented groups for which this choice -- intrinsic versus extrinsic -- gi…
In the present article we prove and discuss several properties of pseudo-Riemannian Bertrand manifolds, and give an overview of the state of the theory together with problems for future work. In particular, we prove that there are no pseudo-Riemannian completely Bertrand systems -- dynamical systems of movement in a central field on a pseudo-Riemannian 2-dimensional manifold of revolution such that all trajectories of movement are closed.
We characterize the Dirac structures that are parallel with respect to Gualtieri's canonical connection of a generalized Riemannian metric. On the other hand, we discuss Dirac structures that are images of generalized tangent structures. These structures turn out to be Dirac structures that, if seen as Lie algebroids, have a symplectic structure. Particularly, if compatibility with a generalized Riemannian metric is required, the symplectic structure is of the Kaehler type.
Many classical facts in Riemannian geometry have their pseudo-Riemannian analogs. For instance, the spaces of space-like and time-like geodesics on a pseudo-Riemannian manifold have natural symplectic structures (just like in the Riemannian case), while the space of light-like geodesics has a natural contact structure. We discuss the geometry of these structures in detail, as well as introduce and study pseudo-Euclidean billiards. In particular, we prove pseudo-Euclidean analogs of the Jacobi-Chasles theorems and show the integrability of the billiard in the ellipsoid and the geodesic flow on …
We combine recent developments on weakly symmetric pseudo--riemannian nilmanifolds with with geometric methods for construction of unitary representations on square integrable Dolbeault cohomology spaces. This runs parallel to construction of discrete series representations on spaces of square integrable harmonic forms with values in holomorphic vector bundles over flag domains. Some special cases had been described by Satake in 1971 and the author in 1975. Here we develop a theory of pseudo--riemannian nilmanifolds of complex type and the nilmanifold versions of flag domains. We construct the…
The elastic flow, which is the $L^2$-gradient flow of the elastic energy, has several applications in geometry and elasticity theory. We present stable discretizations for the elastic flow in two-dimensional Riemannian manifolds that are conformally flat, i.e.\ conformally equivalent to the Euclidean space. Examples include the hyperbolic plane, the hyperbolic disk, the elliptic plane as well as any conformal parameterization of a two-dimensional manifold in ${\mathbb R}^d$, $d\geq 3$. Numerical results show the robustness of the method, as well as quadratic convergence with respect to the spa…
Newtonian, Lagrangian, and Hamiltonian dynamical systems are well formalized mathematically. They give rise to geometric structures describing motion of a point in smooth manifolds. Riemannian metric is a different geometric structure formalizing concepts of length and angle. The interplay of Riemannian metric and its metric connection with mechanical structures produces some features which are absent in the case of general (non-Riemannian) manifolds. The aim of present paper is to discuss these features and develop special language for describing Newtonian, Lagrangian, and Hamiltonian dynamic…
Collapsibility is a combinatorial strengthening of contractibility. We relate this property to metric geometry by proving the collapsibility of any complex that is CAT(0) with a metric for which all vertex stars are convex. This strengthens and generalizes a result by Crowley. Further consequences of our work are: (1) All CAT(0) cube complexes are collapsible. (2) Any triangulated manifold admits a CAT(0) metric if and only if it admits collapsible triangulations. (3) All contractible d-manifolds ($d \ne 4$) admit collapsible CAT(0) triangulations. This discretizes a classical result by Ancel-…
The mathematical relations between certain classical Non-Riemannian gravity models and Einstein-Proca theories are discussed in details. We also show some relations with theories with scalar fields.
We reinterpret the proof of the Riemannian Penrose inequality by H. Bray. The modified argument turns out to have a nice feature so that the flow of Riemannian metrics appearing Bray's proof gives a Lorentzian metric of a spacetime. We also discuss a possible extension of our approach to charged black holes.
