We show that a closed simply connected 8-manifold (9-manifold) of positive sectional curvature on which a 3-torus (4-torus) acts isometrically is homeomorphic to a sphere, a complex projective space or a quaternionic projective plane (sphere). We show that a closed simply connected 2m-manifold (m>4) of positive sectional curvature on which a (m-1)-torus acts isometrically is homeomorphic to a complex projective space if and only if its Euler characteristic is not 2. By a result of Wilking, these results imply a homeomorphism classification for positively curved n-manifolds (n>7) of almost maximal symmetry rank [\frac{n-1}2].
We prove that if a compact Riemannian 4-manifold with positive sectional curvature satisfies a Kato type inequality, then it is definite. We also discuss some new insights for compact Riemannian 4-manifolds of positive sectional curvature.
A Riemannian manifold is called almost positively curved if the set of points for which all $2$-planes have positive sectional curvature is open and dense. We find three new examples of almost positively curved manifolds: $Sp(3)/Sp(1)^2$, and two circle quotients of $Sp(3)/Sp(1)^2$. We also show the quasi-positively curved metric of Tapp [26]} on $Sp(n+1)/Sp(n-1) Sp(1)$ is not almost positively curved if $n\geq 3$.
We investigate the possibility of desingularizing a positively curved metric cone by an expanding gradient Ricci soliton with positive curvature operator. This amounts to study the deformation of such geometric structures. As a consequence, we prove that the moduli space of conical positively curved gradient Ricci expanders is connected.
We bound the dimension of the fiber of a Riemannian submersion from a positively curved manifold in terms of the dimension of the base of the submersion and either its conjugate radius or the length of its shortest closed geodesic.
The symmetry-rank of a riemannian manifold is by definition the rank of its isometry group. We determine precisely which smooth closed manifolds admit a positively curved metric with maximal symmetry-rank.
In this paper, we analyze the asymptotic behavior of $κ$-noncollapsed and positively curved steady Ricci solitons and prove that any $n$-dimensional $κ$-noncollapsed steady Kähler-Ricci soliton with non-negative sectional curvature must be flat.
A Finsler space $(M,F)$ is called flag-wise positively curved, if for any $x\in M$ and any tangent plane $\mathbf{P}\subset T_xM$, we can find a nonzero vector $y\in \mathbf{P}$, such that the flag curvature $K^F(x,y, \mathbf{P})>0$. Though compact positively curved spaces are very rare in both Riemannian and Finsler geometry, flag-wise positively curved metrics should be easy to be found. A generic Finslerian perturbation for a non-negatively curved homogeneous metric may have a big chance to produce flag-wise positively curved metrics. This observation leads our discovery of these metrics on…
We give a metric characterization of the Euclidean sphere in terms of the lower bound of the sectional curvature and the length of the shortest closed geodesics.
We give a metric characterization of the Euclidean sphere in terms of the lower bound of the sectional curvature and the length of the shortest closed geodesics.
In this note, we show that any $n$-dimensional $κ$-noncollapsed steady Kähler-Ricci soliton with nonnegative bisectional curvature must be flat. The result is an improvement to our former work in \cite{DZ2}.
Using the Perron method, we prove the existence of hypersurfaces of prescribed special Lagrangian curvature with prescribed boundary inside complete Riemannian manifolds of non-positive curvature.
We classify positively curved Alexandrov spaces of dimension 4 with an isometric circle action up to equivariant homeomorphism, subject to a certain additional condition on the infinitesimal geometry near fixed points which we conjecture is always satisfied. As a corollary, we also classify positively curved Riemannian orbifolds of dimension 4 with an isometric circle action.
A classical result of Milman roughly states that every Lipschitz function on $\mathbb{S}^n$ is almost constant on a sufficiently high-dimensional sphere $\mathbb{S}^m\subset \mathbb{S}^n$. In this paper we extend the result by proving that any Lipschitz function on a positively curved homogeneous space is almost constant on a high dimensional submanifold.
We prove an obstruction at the level of rational cohomology in small degrees to the existence of positively curved metrics with large symmetry rank. The symmetry rank bound is logarithmic in the dimension of the manifold. As an application, we provide evidence for a generalized conjecture of Hopf that says that no symmetric space of rank at least two admits a metric with positive curvature.
We study the topology of the 13 dimensional positively curved Bazaikin spaces. We show that there is only one such manifold which is homotopy equivalent to a homogeneous space, the so called Berger space. This is in contrast to the case of the 7 dimensional positively curved Eschenburg spaces. In addition, we compute the Pontryagin classes and the linking form and show that the first two billion positively curved Bazaikin manifolds are homeomorphically distinct, raising the question whether this is true in general.
In this paper, we study the geometry of the manifolds of geodesics of a Zoll surface of positive Gauss curvature, show how these metrics induce Finsler metrics of constant flag curvature and give some explicit constructions.
We construct a new 7-dimensional manifold with positive sectional curvature which is 2-connected with π_3=\Z_2 and admits an isometric group action with one dimensional quotient.
For non-reversible Finsler metrics of positive flag curvature on spheres and projective spaces we present results about the number and the length of closed geodesics and about their stability properties.
Totally geodesically embeddings of infinitely many closed 7-manifolds into 13-dimensional positively curved closed Riemannian manifolds are constructed. The problems of computing pinching constants and existence of other totally geodesical embeddings are discussed.
Manifolds admitting positive sectional curvature are conjectured to have rigid homotopical structure and, in particular, comparatively small Euler charateristics. In this article, we obtain upper bounds for the Euler characteristic of a positively curved Riemannian manifold that admits a large isometric torus action. We apply our results to prove obstructions to symmetric spaces, products of manifolds, and connected sums admitting positively curved metrics with symmetry.
We prove that any metric of non-positive curvature in the sense of Alexandrov on a compact surface can be isometrically embedded as a convex spacelike Cauchy surface in a flat spacetime of dimension (2+1). The proof follows from polyhedral approximation.
In this paper we give a partial affirmative answer to a conjecture of Greene-Wu and Yau. We prove that a complete noncompact Kähler surface with positive and bounded sectional curvature and with finite analytic Chern number $c_{1}(M)^{2}$ is biholomorphic to ${\C}^2$.
We prove that Ricci flows with almost maximal extinction time must be nearly round, provided that they have positive isotropic curvature when crossed with $\mathbb{R}^{2}$. As an application, we show that positively curved metrics on $S^{3}$ and $RP^{3}$ with almost maximal width must be nearly round.
Inspired by a recent work of Grove-Petersen in [GP18], where the authors studied Alexandrov spaces with largest possible boundary. We study Alexandrov spaces with lower curvature bound 1 and with small boundary. When the radius of X is π/2, and the boundary has diameter π/2, we classify the total space X.
The $c$-curvature of a complete surface with Gauss curvature close to 1 in $C^2$ norm is almost-positive (in the sense of Kim--McCann). Our proof goes by a careful case by case analysis combined with perturbation arguments from the constant curvature case, keeping track of an estimate on the closeness curvature condition.
We extend two known existence results to simply connected manifolds with positive sectional curvature: we show that there exist pairs of simply connected positively-curved manifolds that are tangentially homotopy equivalent but not homeomorphic, and we deduce that an open manifold may admit a pair of non-homeomorphic simply connected and positively-curved souls. Examples of such pairs are given by explicit pairs of Eschenburg spaces. To deduce the second statement from the first, we extend our earlier work on the stable converse soul question and show that it has a positive answer for a class …
We classify four-dimensional shrinking Ricci solitons satisfying $Sec \geq \frac{1}{24} R$, where $Sec$ and $R$ denote the sectional and the scalar curvature, respectively. They are isometric to either $\mathbb{R}^{4}$ (and quotients), $\mathbb{S}^{4}$, $\mathbb{RP}^{4}$ or $\mathbb{CP}^{2}$ with their standard metrics.
We establish lower bounds for the first non-zero eigenvalue for the natural geometric sub-elliptic Laplacian operator defined on sub-Riemannian manifolds of step 2 that satisfy a positive curvature condition. The methods are very general and can be applied even when the sub-Riemannian geometry has considerable torsion.
We show that a shrinking Ricci soliton with positive sectional curvature must be compact. This extends a result of Perelman in dimension three and improves a result of Naber in dimension four, respectively.
In this paper we show that a simply connected 8-dimensional manifold M of positive sectional curvature and symmetry rank $\geq 2$ resembles a rank one symmetric space in several ways. For example, the Euler characteristic of M is equal to the Euler characteristic of S^8, H P^2 or C P^4. And if M is rationally elliptic then M is rationally isomorphic to a rank one symmetric space. For torsion-free manifolds we derive a much stronger classification. We also study the bordism type of 8-dimensional manifolds of positive sectional curvature and symmetry rank $\geq 2$. As an illustration we apply ou…
We examine homogeneous metrics on spheres and determine which ones have positive sectional curvature. The answer is subtle and surprisingly difficult to prove. In some cases we also determine their pinching constants. This completes the classification of all homogeneous metrics with positive curvature (apart from one special Aloff Wallach space where the set of homogeneous metrics is too large).
In this paper, we introduce the flag-wise positively curved condition for Finsler spaces (the (FP) Condition), which means that in each tangent plane, we can find a flag pole in this plane such that the corresponding flag has positive flag curvature. Applying the Killing navigation technique, we find a list of compact coset spaces admitting non-negatively curved homogeneous Finsler metrics satisfying the (FP) Condition. Using a crucial technique we developed previously, we prove that most of these coset spaces cannot be endowed with positively curved homogeneous Finsler metrics. We also prove …
In this paper, I shall demonstrate that sufficiently high-dimensional closed positively-curved Riemannian manifolds are either diffeomorphic to a spherical space form, or isometric to a locally compact rank one symmetric space. This surprising classification of positively-curved Riemannian manifolds results from combining the concentration of measures of Grassmanians with Brendle-Schoen pointwise (weakly)- 1/4-pinching Theorem. A direct corollary of the main result within this paper is the answering of the long standing Hopf Conjecture in sufficiently high dimensions.
Counterexamples to continuity of optimal transportation on Riemannian manifolds with everywhere positive sectional curvature are provided. These examples show that the condition A3w of Ma, Trudinger, & Wang is not guaranteed by positivity of sectional curvature.
We provide supplements and open problems related to structure theorems for maximal rationally connected fibrations of certain positively curved projective varieties, including smooth projective varieties with semi-positive holomorphic sectional curvature, pseudo-effective tangent bundle, and nef anti-canonical divisor.
Let M be a closed simply connected n-manifold of positive sectional curvature. We determine its homeomorphism or homotopic type if M also admits an isometric elementary p-group action of large rank. Our main results are: There exists a constant p(n)>0 such that (1) If M^{2n} admits an effective isometric \Bbb Z_p^k-action for a prime p\ge p(n), then k\le n and ``='' implies that M^{2n} is homeomorphic to a sphere or a complex projective space. (2) If M^{2n+1} admits an isometric S^1 x \Bbb Z_p^k-action for a prime p\ge p(n), then k\le n and ``='' implies that M is homeomorphic to a sphere. (3)…
We prove that a class of asymptotically nonnegatively curved manifolds (in the sense of Abresch) satisfying some uniform Euclidean type volume growth conditions contains only finitely many homeomorphism types.
We show that the shortest closed geodesic on a 2-sphere with non-negative curvature has length bounded above by three times the diameter. We prove a new isoperimetric inequality for 2-spheres with pinched curvature; this allows us to improve our bound on the length of the shortest closed geodesic in the pinched curvature setting.
Rigidity results are obtained for Riemannian $d$-manifolds with $\sec \geqslant 1$ and spherical rank at least $d-2>0$. Conjecturally, all such manifolds are locally isometric to a round sphere or complex projective space with the (symmetric) Fubini--Study metric. This conjecture is verified in all odd dimensions, for metrics on $d$-spheres when $d \neq 6$, for Riemannian manifolds satisfying the Rakić duality principle, and for Kählerian manifolds.
It is well-known by the work of Hsiang and Kleiner that every closed oriented positively curved 4-dimensional manifold with an effective isometric S^1-action is homeomorphic to S^4 or CP^2. As stated, it is a topological classification. The primary goal of this paper is to show that it is indeed a diffeomorphism classification for such 4-dimensional manifolds. The proof of this diffeomorphism classification also shows an even stronger statement that every positively curved simply connected 4-manifold with an isometric circle action admits another smooth circle action which extends to a 2-dimen…
In this article, we study complete Type I ancient Ricci flows with positive sectional curvature. Our main results are as follows: in the complete and noncompact case, all such ancient solutions must be noncollapsed on all scales; in the closed case, if the dimension is even, then all such ancient solutions must be noncollapsed on all scales. This furthermore gives a complete classification for three-dimensional noncompact Type I ancient solutions without assuming the noncollapsing condition.
We deal with seven dimensional compact Riemannian manifolds of positive curvature which admit a cohomogeneity one action by a compact Lie group G. We prove that the manifold is diffeomorphic to a sphere if the dimension of the semisimple part of G is bigger than 6.
We study harmonic maps from Riemannian manifolds into arbitrary non-positively curved and CAT(-1) metric spaces. First we discuss the domain variation formula with special emphasis on the error terms. Expanding higher order terms of this and other formulas in terms of curvature, we prove an analogue of the Eels-Sampson Bochner formula in this more general setting. In particular, we show that harmonic maps from spaces of non-negative Ricci curvature into non-positively curved spaces have subharmonic energy density. When the domain is compact the energy density is constant, and if the domain has…
In this paper, we prove that on every Finsler $n$-sphere $(S^n, F)$ for $n\ge 6$ with reversibility $λ$ and flag curvature $K$ satisfying $(\fracλ{λ+1})^2<K\le 1$, either there exist infinitely many prime closed geodesics or there exist $[\frac{n}{2}]-2$ closed geodesics possessing irrational average indices. If in addition the metric is bumpy, then there exist $n-3$ closed geodesics possessing irrational average indices provided the number of closed geodesics is finite.
We extend to any simply connected Kähler manifold with non-positive sectional curvature some conditions for interpolation in $\mathbb{C}$ and in the unit disk given by Berndtsson, Ortega-Cerdà and Seip. The main tool is a comparison theorem for the Hessian in Kähler geometry due to Greene, Wu and Siu, Yau.
In this paper we obtain three results concerning the geometry of complete noncompact positively curved Kähler manifolds at infinity. The first one states that the order of volume growth of a complete noncompact Kähler manifold with positive bisectional curvature is at least half of the real dimension (i.e., the complex dimension). The second one states that the curvature of a complete noncompact Kähler manifold with positive bisectional curvature decays at least linearly in the average sense. The third result is concerned with the relation between the volume growth and the curvature decay. We …
