We establish a link between rational homotopy theory and the problem which vector bundles admit complete Riemannian metric of nonnegative sectional curvature. As an application, we show for a large class of simply-connected nonnegatively curved manifolds that, if C lies in the class and T is a torus of positive dimension, then "most" vector bundles over the product of C and T admit no complete nonnegatively curved metric.
In this note, we answer positively a question by Belegradek and Kapovitch about the relation between rational homotopy theory and a problem in Riemannian geometry which asks that total spaces of which vector bundles over compact nonnegative curved manifolds admit (complete) metrics with nonnegative curvature.
A topological groupoid G is K-pointed, if it is equipped with a homomorphism from a topological group K to G. We describe the homotopy groups of such K-pointed topological groupoids and relate these groups to the ordinary homotopy groups in terms of a long exact sequence. As an application, we give an obstruction to presentability of proper regular Lie groupoids.
We find new obstructions to the existence of complete Riemannian metric of nonnegative sectional curvature on manifolds with infinite fundamental groups. In particular, we construct many examples of vector bundles whose total spaces admit no nonnegatively curved metric.
This paper considers the Pontryagin characters of graded vector bundles of finite rank, in the cohomology vector spaces of a Lie algebroid over the same base. These Pontryagin characters vanish if the graded vector bundle carries a representation up to homotopy of the Lie algebroid. As a consequence, this gives a strong obstruction to the existence of a representation up to homotopy on a graded vector bundle of finite rank. In particular, if a graded vector bundle $E[0]\oplus F[1]\to M$ carries a $2$-term representation up to homotopy of a Lie algebroid $A\to M$, then all the (classical) $A$-P…
We study topological obstructions to the existence of a Riemannian metric on manifolds with boundary such that the scalar curvature is non-negative and the boundary is mean convex. We construct many compact manifolds with boundary which admit no Riemannian metric with non-negative scalar curvature and mean convex boundary. For example, we show that the manifold $(T^{n-2}\times Σ)\# N$, where $Σ$ is a compact, connected and orientable surface which is not a disk or a cylinder and $N$ is a closed $n$-dimensional manifold, does not admit a metric of non-negative scalar curvature and mean convex b…
We show that the moduli space of metrics of nonnegative sectional curvature on every homotopy ${\mathbb {R}} P^5$ has infinitely many path components. We also show that in each dimension $4k+1$ there are at least $2^{2k}$ homotopy ${\mathbb {R}} P^{4k+1}$s of pairwise distinct oriented diffeomorphism type for which the moduli space of metrics of positive Ricci curvature has infinitely many path components. Examples of closed manifolds with finite fundamental group with these properties were known before only in dimensions $4k+3\geq 7$.
This paper explores the relation between the structure of fibre bundles akin to those associated to a closed almost nonnegatively sectionally curved manifold and rational homotopy theory.
We use an index-theoretic technique of Hitchin to show that the space of complete Riemannian metrics of nonnegative sectional curvature on certain open spin manifolds has nontrivial homotopy groups in infinitely many degrees. A new ingredient of independent interest is homotopy density of the subspace of metrics with cylindrical ends.
We discuss the cobordism type of spin manifolds with nonnegative sectional curvature. We show that in each dimension $4k \geq 12$, there are infinitely many cobordism types of simply connected and nonnegatively curved spin manifolds. Moreover, we raise and analyze a question about possible cobordism obstructions to nonnegative curvature.
We prove that certain involutions defined by Vogell and Burghelea-Fiedorowicz on the rational algebraic $K$-theory of spaces coincide. This gives a way to compute the positive and negative eigenspaces of the involution on rational homotopy groups of pseudoisotopy spaces from the involution on rational $S^{1}$-equivariant homology group of the free loop space of a simply-connected manifold. As an application, we give explicit dimensions of the open manifolds $V$ that appear in Belegradek-Farrell-Kapovitch's work for which the spaces of complete nonnegatively curved metrics on $V$ have nontrivia…
We describe a construction of the modular class associated to a representation up to homotopy of a Lie groupoid. In the case of the adjoint representation up to homotopy, this class is the obstruction to the existence of a volume form, in the sense of Weinstein's "The volume of a differentiable stack".
Let $M^n$ be a compact K$\ddot{a}$hler manifold with almost nonnegative Ricci curvature and nonzero first Betti number. We show that the holomorphic Euler number of $M^n$ vanishes, which gives a new obstruction for compact complex manifolds admitting K$\ddot{a}$hler metrics with almost nonnegative Ricci curvature. A crucial step in the proof is to show a vanishing theorem of Dolbeault-Morse-Novikov cohomology.
We show that almost nonnegatively curved m-dimensional manifolds are, up to finite cover, nilpotent spaces in the sense of homotopy theory and have C(m)-nilpotent fundamental groups. We also show that up to a finite cover almost nonnegatively curved manifolds are fiber bundles with simply connected fibers over nilmanifolds.
This is a survey of the current state of the question "Which closed connected manifolds of dimension $n\ge 5$ admit Riemannian metrics whose scalar curvature function is everywhere positive?" The introduction gives a brief overview of these results, while the body of the paper discusses the methods used in the proofs of these results. We mention the two flavors of topological obstructions to the existence of \pscm s: one is a consequence of the Weizenböck formula for the Dirac operator, the other is obtained by considering stable minimal hypersurfaces. We talk about geometric constructions of …
We study algebraic conditions on a group G under which every properly discontinuous, isometric G-action on a Hadamard manifold has a G-invariant Busemann function. For such G we prove the following structure theorem: every open complete nonpositively curved Riemannian K(G,1) manifold that is homotopy equivalent to a finite complex of codimension >2 is an open regular neighborhood of a subcomplex of the same codimension. In this setting we show that each tangential homotopy type contains infinitely many open K(G,1) manifolds that admit no complete nonpositively curved metric even though their u…
Let V be an open manifold with complete nonnegatively curved metric such that the normal sphere bundle to a soul has no section. We prove that the souls of nearby nonnegatively curved metrics on V are smoothly close. Combining this result with some topological properties of pseudoisotopies we show that for many V the space of complete nonnegatively curved metrics has infinite higher homotopy groups.
We describe a construction of Riemannian metrics of nonnegative sectional curvature on a closed smooth nonorientable 4-manifold with fundamental group of order two that realizes a homotopy class that was not previously known to contain nonnegatively curved manifolds. The procedure yields new metrics of nonnegative sectional curvature on any 2-sphere bundle with base space the 2-sphere or the real projective plane.
We show that in each dimension $n\ge 10$ there exist infinite sequences of homotopy equivalent but mutually non-homeomorphic closed simply connected Riemannian $n$-manifolds with $0\le \sec\le 1$, positive Ricci curvature and uniformly bounded diameter. We also construct open manifolds of fixed diffeomorphism type which admit infinitely many complete nonnegatively pinched metrics with souls of bounded diameter such that the souls are mutually non-homeomorphic. Finally, we construct examples of noncompact manifolds whose moduli spaces of complete metrics with $\sec\ge 0$ have infinitely many co…
Let (M,d) be a metric space. For 0<r<R, and p in M let G(p,r,R) be the group obtained by considering all loops based at p whose image is contained in the closed ball of radius r and identifying two loops if there is a homotopy betweeen them that is contained in the open ball of radius R. In this paper we study the asymptotic behavior of the G(p,r,R) groups of complete open manifolds of nonnegative Ricci curvature. We also find relationships between the G(p,r,R) groups and tangent cones at infinity of a metric space and show that any tangent cone at infinity of a complete open manifold of nonne…
We present homotopy theoretic and geometric interpretations of the Kane-Mele invariant for gapped fermionic quantum systems in three dimensions with time-reversal symmetry. We show that the invariant is related to a certain 4-equivalence which lends it an interpretation as an obstruction to a block decomposition of the sewing matrix up to nonequivariant homotopy. We prove a Mayer-Vietoris Theorem for manifolds with $\mathbb{Z}_2$-actions which intertwines Real and $\mathbb{Z}_2$-equivariant de Rham cohomology groups, and apply it to derive a new localisation formula for the Kane-Mele invariant…
We show that in each dimension $4n+3$, $n\ge 1$, there exist infinite sequences of closed smooth simply connected manifolds $M$ of pairwise distinct homotopy type for which the moduli space of Riemannian metrics with nonnegative sectional curvature has infinitely many path components. Closed manifolds with these properties were known before only in dimension seven, and our result does also hold for moduli spaces of Riemannian metrics with positive Ricci curvature. Moreover, in conjunction with work of Belegradek, Kwasik and Schultz, we obtain that for each such $M$ the moduli space of complete…
We show that the existence of an embedded compact, boundaryless hypersurface S of strictly positive mean curvature in a noncompact, connected, complete Riemannian n-manifold N of nonnegative Ricci curvature implies that the homomorphism between the fundamental groups of S and N induced by the inclusion is surjective, provided only that N - S has two connected components, one of which has noncompact closure and trivial homotopy relative to S. The idea of the proof is to view N as a spacelike hypersurface in a suitable Lorentz manifold and then apply a recent version of certain classic results b…
Let $M^n$ be a complete, open Riemannian manifold with $\Ric \geq 0$. In 1994, Grigori Perelman showed that there exists a constant $δ_{n}>0$, depending only on the dimension of the manifold, such that if the volume growth satisfies $α_M := \lim_{r \to \infty} \frac{\Vol(B_p(r))}{ω_n r^n} \geq 1-δ_{n}$, then $M^n$ is contractible. Here we employ the techniques of Perelman to find specific lower bounds for the volume growth, $α(k,n)$, depending only on $k$ and $n$, which guarantee the individual $k$-homotopy group of $M^n$ is trivial.
We construct metrics of positive Ricci curvature on some vector bundles over tori (or more generally, over nilmanifolds). This gives rise to the first examples of manifolds with positive Ricci curvature which are homotopy equivalent but not homeomorphic to manifolds of nonnegative sectional curvature.
In this paper we prove an inverse function theorem in derived differential geometry. More concretely, we show that a morphism of curved $L_\infty$ spaces which is a quasi-isomorphism at a point has a local homotopy inverse. This theorem simultaneously generalizes the inverse function theorem for smooth manifolds and the Whitehead theorem for $L_\infty$ algebras. The main ingredients are the obstruction theory for $L_\infty$ homomorphisms (in the curved setting) and the homotopy transfer theorem for curved $L_\infty$ algebras. Both techniques work in the $A_\infty$ case as well.
