In this paper we show that, in the definition of Alexandrov spaces with lower or upper curvature bound, the original conditions can be replaced with much weaker ones. For the purpose, we introduce `imaginary' comparison angles (and `imaginary' angles), and the right or left bounded second derivative in the support sense. As applications, we provide new proofs for the Doubling Theorem, and the Globalization Theorem for complete or geodesic Alexandrov spaces with lower curvature bound.
Recently, in [49], a new definition for lower Ricci curvature bounds on Alexandrov spaces was introduced by the authors. In this article, we extend our research to summarize the geometric and analytic results under this Ricci condition. In particular, two new results, the rigidity result of Bishop-Gromov volume comparison and Lipschitz continuity of heat kernel, are obtained.
Here I show compatibility of two definition of generalized curvature bounds --- the lower bound for sectional curvature in the sense of Alexandrov and lower bound for Ricci curvature in the sense of Lott--Villani--Sturm.
Under the definition of Ricci curvature bounded below for Alexandrov spaces introduced by Zhang-Zhu, we generalize a result by Colding that an n dimentional manifold with Ricci curvature greater or equal to n minus 1 and volume close to that of the unit n sphere is close (in the Gromov-Hausdorff distance) to the sphere, from the case of Riemannian manifolds to the case of Alexandrov spaces, with an additional assumption, roughly speaking, that the rough volume of the set of short cut points is small, following the basic idea in the Riemannian case with necessary modifications because of the on…
In this paper, we establish a Bochner type formula on Alexandrov spaces with Ricci curvature bounded below. Yau's gradient estimate for harmonic functions is also obtained on Alexandrov spaces.
In this paper, we introduce a new notion for lower bounds of Ricci curvature on Alexandrov spaces, and extend Cheeger-Gromoll splitting theorem and Cheng's maximal diameter theorem to Alexandrov spaces under this Ricci curvature condition.
We show that every finite-dimensional Alexandrov space X with curvature bounded from below embeds canonically into a product of an Alexandrov space with the same curvature bound and a Euclidean space such that each affine function on X comes from an affine function on the Euclidean space.
In the present paper, we determine the topologies of three-dimensional closed Alexandrov spaces which converge to lower dimensional spaces in the Gromov-Hausdorff topology.
We prove that any finite dimensional Alexandrov space with a lower curvature bound is locally Lipschitz contractible. As applications, we obtain a sufficient condition for solving the Plateau problem in an Alexandrov space considered by Mese and Zulkowski.
We consider an infinitesimal version of the Bishop-Gromov relative volume comparison condition as generalized notion of Ricci curvature bounded below for Alexandrov spaces. We prove a Laplacian comparison theorem for Alexandrov spaces under the condition. As an application we prove a topological splitting theorem.
We obtain a topological and weakly equivariant classification of closed three-dimensional Alexandrov spaces with an effective isometric circle action. As an application of the classification we prove a version of the Borel conjecture for closed three-dimensional Alexandrov spaces with circle symmetry.
We prove a reverse isoperimetric inequality for domains homeomorphic to a disc with the boundary of curvature bounded below lying in two-dimensional Alexandrov spaces of curvature $\geqslant c$. We also study the equality case.
We construct for every finite-dimensional Alexandrov space $A$ and every point $p \in A$ a $2$-convex function $f_p$ in a small neighborhood around $p$, which approximates $\operatorname{dist}_p^2$ up to second order. Moreover, the function $f_p$ can be lifted to Gromov-Hausdorff close Alexandrov spaces of the same dimension.
We study closed three-dimensional Alexandrov spaces with a lower Ricci curvature bound in the $\mathsf{CD}^*(K,N)$ sense, focusing our attention on those with positive or nonnegative Ricci curvature. First, we show that a closed three-dimensional $\mathsf{CD}^*(2,3)$-Alexandrov space must be homeomorphic to a spherical space form or to the suspension of $\mathbb{R}P^2$. We then classify closed three-dimensional $\mathsf{CD}^*(0,3)$-Alexandrov spaces.
Distance functions of metric spaces with lower curvature bound, by definition, enjoy various metric inequalities; triangle comparison, quadruple comparison and the inequality of Lang-Schroeder-Sturm. The purpose of this paper is to study the extremal cases of these inequalities and to prove rigidity results. The spaces which we shall deal with here are Alexandrov spaces which possibly have infinite dimension and are not supposed to be locally compact.
We show that any n-dimensional nonnegatively curved Alexandrov space with the maximal possible number of extremal points is isometric to a quotient space of Euclidean n -space by an action of a crystallographic group. We describe all such actions.
We obtain sharp lower bounds on the radii of inscribed balls for strictly convex isoperimetric domains lying in a 2-dimensional Alexandrov metric space of curvature bounded below. We also characterize the case when such bounds are attained.
We obtain a structure theorem for closed, cohomogeneity one Alexandrov spaces and we classify closed, cohomogeneity one Alexandrov spaces in dimensions 3 and 4. As a corollary, we obtain the classification of closed, $n$-dimensional, cohomogeneity one Alexandrov spaces admitting an isometric $T^{n-1}$ action. In contrast to the 1- and 2-dimensional cases, where it is known that an Alexandrov space is a topological manifold, in dimension 3 the classification contains, in addition to the known cohomogeneity one manifolds, the spherical suspension of $RP^2$, which is not a manifold.
In this paper we discuss the sufficient and necessary conditions for multiple Alexandrov spaces being glued to an Alexandrov space. We propose a Gluing Conjecture, which says that the finite gluing of Alexandrov spaces is an Alexandrov space, if and only if the gluing is by path isometry along the boundaries and the tangent cones are glued to Alexandrov spaces. This generalizes Petrunin's Gluing Theorem. Under the assumptions of the Gluing Conjecture, we classify the $2$-point gluing over $(n-1,ε)$-regular points as local separable gluing and the gluing near un-glued $(n-1,ε)$-regular points a…
We classify closed, simply-connected cohomogeneity-one Alexandrov spaces in dimensions $5$, $6$ and $7$. We show that every closed, simply-connected smooth $n$-orbifold, $2\leq n\leq 7$ with a cohomogeneity one action is equivariantly homeomorphic to a smooth good orbifold of cohomogeneity one.
In this paper, we study a complete noncompact nonnegatively curved Alexandrov space $A$ with a soul $S$ of codimension two. We establish some structural results under additional regularity assumptions. As an application, we conclude that in this case Sharafutdinov retraction, $π:\ A\to S$, is a submetry.
Denote by $\mathcal{A}(κ)$ the set of all compact Alexandrov surfaces with curvature bounded below by $κ$ without boundary, endowed with the topology induced by the Gromov-Hausdorff metric. We determine the connected components of $\mathcal{A}(κ)$ and of its closure.
In this paper we prove that in the class of metric measure spaces with Alexandrov curvature bounded from below the Riemannian curvature-dimension condition $RCD(K,N)$ with $K\in \mathbb{R}$ and $N\in [1,\infty)$ is preserved under doubling and gluing constructions.
Under an infinitesimal version of the Bishop-Gromov relative volume comparison condition for a measure on an Alexandrov space, we prove a topological splitting theorem of Cheeger-Gromoll type. As a corollary, we prove an isometric splitting theorem for Riemannian manifolds with singularities of nonnegative (Bakry-Emery) Ricci curvature.
We introduce the notion of good coverings of metric spaces, and prove that if a metric space admits a good covering, then it has the same locally Lipschitz homotopy type as the nerve complex of the covering. As an application, we obtain a Lipschitz homotopy stability result for a moduli space of compact Alexandrov spaces without collapsing.
In this expository note, we present a transparent proof of Toponogov's theorem for Alexandrov spaces in the general case, not assuming local compactness of the underlying metric space. More precisely, we show that if M is a complete geodesic metric space such that the Alexandrov triangle comparisons for curvature greater than or equal to k are satisfied locally, then these comparisons also hold in the large. The proof is a modification of an argument due to Plaut.
We relate the existence of many infinite geodesics on Alexandrov spaces to a statement about the average growth of volumes of balls. We deduce that the geodesic flow exists and preserves the Liouville measure in several important cases. The developed analytic tool has close ties to integral geometry.
We prove that sufficiently collapsed, closed and irreducible three-dimensional Alexandrov spaces are modeled on one of the eight three-dimensional Thurston geometries. This extends a result of Shioya and Yamaguchi, originally formulated for Riemannian manifolds, to the Alexandrov setting.
We prove a Lipschitz-Volume rigidity theorem in Alexandrov geometry, that is, if a 1-Lipschitz map $f\colon X=\amalg X_\ell\to Y$ between Alexandrov spaces preserves volume, then it is a path isometry and an isometry when restricted to the interior of $X$. We furthermore characterize the metric structure on $Y$ with respect to $X$ when $f$ is also onto. This implies the converse of Petrunin's Gluing Theorem: if a gluing of two Alexandrov spaces via a bijection between their boundaries produces an Alexandrov space, then the bijection must be an isometry.
We obtain a topological and equivariant classification of closed, connected three-dimensional Alexandrov spaces admitting a local isometric circle action. We show, in particular, that such spaces are homeomorphic to connected sums of some closed 3-manifold with a local circle action and finitely many copies of the suspension of the real projective plane.
In this note, we estimate the upper bound of volume of closed positively or nonnegatively curved Alexandrov space $X$ with strictly convex boundary. We also discuss the equality case. In particular, the Boundary Conjecture holds when the volume upper bound is achieved. Our theorem also can be applied to Riemannian manifolds with non-smooth boundary, which generalizes Heintze and Karcher's classical volume comparison theorem. Our main tool is the gradient flow of semi-concave functions.
Let $M_j$ be a sequence of Riemannian manifolds with sectional curvature bound below collapsing to a compact Alexandrov space $X$ of dimension $k$. Suppose that all but finitely many points of $X$ are $(k,δ)$-strained and that the space of directions at each exceptional point contains $k+1$ directions making obtuse angles with each other. We prove that $M_j$ admits a structure of locally trivial fibration over $X$ for sufficiently large $j$. The same is true for collapsing sequences of Alexandrov spaces such that the infimum of the volume of the spaces of directions is sufficiently large relat…
We introduce a new geometric invariant called the obtuse constant of spaces with curvature bounded below. We first find relations between this invariant and the normalized volume. We also discuss the case of maximal obtuse constant equal to $π/2$, where we prove some rigidity for spaces. Although we consider Alexandrov spaces with curvature bounded below, the results are new even in the Riemannian case.
Given a compact Alexadrov $n$-space $Z$ with curvature curv $\ge κ$, and let $f: Z\to X$ be a distance non-increasing onto map to another Alexandrov $n$-space with curv $\ge κ$. The relative volume rigidity conjecture says that if $X$ achieves the relative maximal volume i.e. $vol(Z)=vol(X)$, then $X$ is isometric to $Z/\sim$, where $z, z'\in\partial Z$ and $z\sim z'$ if only if $f(z)=f(z')$. We will partially verify this conjecture, and give a classification for compact Alexandrov $n$-spaces with relatively maximal volume. We will also give an elementary proof for a pointed version of Bishop-…
We define regular points of an extremal subset in an Alexandrov space and study their basic properties. We show that a neighborhood of a regular point in an extremal subset is almost isometric to an open subset in Euclidean space and that the set of regular points in an extremal subset has full measure and is dense in it. These results actually hold for strained points in an extremal subset. Applications include the volume convergence of extremal subsets under a noncollapsing convergence of Alexandrov spaces, and the existence of a cone fibration structure of a metric neighborhood of the regul…
For a path in a compact finite dimensional Alexandrov space $X$ with curv $\ge κ$, the two basic geometric invariants are the length and the turning angle (which measures the closeness from being a geodesic). We show that the sum of the two invariants of any loop is bounded from below in terms of $κ$, the dimension, diameter and Hausdorff measure of $X$. This generalizes a basic estimate of Cheeger on the length of a closed geodesic in closed Riemannian manifold ([Ch], [GP1,2]). To see that the above result also generalizes and improves an analogous of the Cheeger type estimate in Alexandrov g…
The equivariant Gromov--Hausdorff convergence of metric spaces is studied. Where all isometry groups under consideration are compact Lie, it is shown that an upper bound on the dimension of the group guarantees that the convergence is by Lie homomorphisms. Additional lower bounds on curvature and volume strengthen this result to convergence by monomorphisms, so that symmetries can only increase on passing to the limit.
In this paper, we introduce quasi-convex subsets in Alxandrov spaces with lower curvature bound, which include not only all closed convex subsets without boundary but also all extremal subsets. Moreover, we explore several essential properties of such kind of subsets including a generalized Liberman theorem. It turns out that the quasi-convex subset is a nice and fundamental concept to illustrate the similarities and differences between Riemannian manifolds and Alxandrov spaces with lower curvature bound.
In the previous work [35], the second and third authors established a Bochner type formula on Alexandrov spaces. The purpose of this paper is to give some applications of the Bochner type formula. Firstly, we extend the sharp lower bound estimates of spectral gap, due to Chen-Wang [9, 10] and Bakry-Qian [6], from smooth Riemannian manifolds to Alexandrov spaces. As an application, we get an Obata type theorem for Alexandrov spaces. Secondly, we obtain (sharp) Li-Yau's estimate for positve solutions of heat equations on Alexandrov spaces.
We study three-dimensional Alexandrov spaces with a lower curvature bound, focusing on extending three classical results on three-dimensional manifolds: First, we show that a closed three-dimensional Alexandrov space of positive curvature, with at least one topological singularity, must be homeomorphic to the suspension of the real projective plane; we use this to classify, up to homeomorphism, closed, positively curved Alexandrov spaces of dimension three. Second, we classify closed three-dimensional Alexandrov spaces of nonnegative curvature. Third, we study the well-known Poincaré Conjectur…
We study the intrinsic geometry of a one-dimensional complex space provided with a Kaehler metric in the sense of Grauert. We show that if K is an upper bound for the Gaussian curvature on the regular locus, then the intrinsic metric has curvature at most K in the sense of Alexandrov.
We prove the generalized Margulis lemma with a uniform index bound on an Alexandrov $n$-space $X$ with curvature bounded below, i.e., small loops at $p\in X$ generate a subgroup of the fundamental group of unit ball $B_1(p)$ that contains a nilpotent subgroup of index $\le w(n)$, where $w(n)$ is a constant depending only on the dimension $n$. The proof is based on the main ideas of V.~Kapovitch, A.~Petrunin, and W.~Tuschmann, and the following results: (1) We prove that any regular almost Lipschitz submersion constructed by Yamaguchi on a collapsed Alexandrov space with curvature bounded below…
We give an alternative proof for the fact that in $n$-dimensional Alexandrov spaces with curvature bounded below there exists a unique optimal transport plan from any purely $(n-1)$-unrectifiable starting measure, and that this plan is induced by an optimal map.
In this paper, we show a local energy convexity of $W^{1,2}$ maps into $CAT(K)$ spaces. This energy convexity allows us to extend Colding and Minicozzi's width-sweepout construction to produce closed geodesics in any closed Alexandrov space of curvature bounded from above, which also provides a generalized version of the Birkhoff-Lyusternik theorem on the existence of non-trivial closed geodesics in the Alexandrov setting.
In this paper, we generalize a theorem {à} la Alexandrov of Wang, Wang and Zhang [WWZ] for closed codimension-two spacelike submanifolds in the Minkowski spacetime for an adapted CMC condition .
