On R^n endowed with a riemannian metric of bounded nonpositive curvature, the weakly convex closed subsets are topologically trivial. The stability of such subsets under intersection characterizes the euclidean spaces.
Motivated by the recent work of Chu-Lee-Tam on the nefness of canonical line bundle for compact Kähler manifolds with nonpositive $k$-Ricci curvature, we consider a natural notion of {\em almost nonpositive $k$-Ricci curvature}, which is weaker than the existence of a Kähler metric with nonpositive $k$-Ricci curvature. When $k=1$, this is just the {\em almost nonpositive holomorphic sectional curvature} introduced by Zhang. We firstly give a lower bound for the existence time of the twisted Kähler-Ricci flow when there exists a Kähler metric with $k$-Ricci curvature bounded from above by a pos…
We give a classification for connected complete locally irreducible Riemannian manifolds with nonpositive curvature operator, which admit a nonzero closed or co-closed conformal Killing $L^{2}-$form. Moreover, we prove vanishing theorems for closed and co-closed conformal Killing $L^{2}-$forms on some complete Riemannian manifolds.
In this paper we construct and study isoperimetric functions at infinity for Hadamard manifolds. These quasi-isometry invariants give a measure of the spread of geodesics in such a manifold.
Let $(M^n, g)$ be a compact Kähler manifold with nonpositive bisectional curvature. We show that a finite cover is biholomorphic and isometric to a flat torus bundle over a compact Kähler manifold $N^k$ with $c_1 < 0$. This confirms a conjecture of Yau. As a corollary, for any compact Kähler manifold with nonpositive bisectional curvature, the Kodaira dimension is equal to the maximal rank of the Ricci tensor. We also prove a global splitting result under the assumption of certain immersed complex submanifolds.
We prove that complete submanifolds, on which the Omori-Yau weak maximum principle for the Hessian holds, with low codimension and bounded by cylinders of small radius must have points rich in large positive extrinsic curvature. The lower the codimension is, the richer such points are. The smaller the radius is, the larger such curvatures are. This work unifies and generalizes several previous results on submanifolds with nonpositive extrinsic curvature.
In a paper from 1954, Marstrand proved that if $K\subset \mathbb{R}^2$ with Hausdorff dimension greater than 1, then its one-dimensional projection has positive Lebesgue measure for almost-all directions. In this article, we show that if $M$ is a simply connected surface with non-positive curvature, then Marstrand's theorem is still valid.
A submanifold $M^m$ of a Euclidean space $R^{m+p}$ is said to have harmonic mean curvature vector field if $Δ\vec{H}=0$, where $\vec{H}$ is the mean curvature vector field of $M\hookrightarrow R^{m+p}$ and $Δ$ is the rough Laplacian on $M$. There is a conjecture named after Bangyen Chen which states that submanifolds of Euclidean spaces with harmonic mean curvature vector fields are minimal. In this paper we prove that weakly convex hypersurfaces (i.e. hypersurfaces whose principle curvatures are nonnegative) with harmonic mean curvature vector fields in Euclidean spaces are minimal. Furthermo…
A Riemannian manifold is called harmonic if its volume density function expressed in polar coordinates centered at any point is radial. Flat and rank-one symmetric spaces are harmonic. The converse (the Lichnerowicz Conjecture) is true for manifolds of nonnegative scalar curvature and for some other classes of manifolds, but is not true in general: there exists a family of homogeneous harmonic spaces, the Damek-Ricci spaces, containing noncompact rank-one symmetric spaces, as well as infinitely many nonsymmetric examples. We prove that a harmonic homogeneous manifold of nonpositive curvature i…
For a manifold with nonpositive curvature, the Martin boundary is described by the behavior of normalized Green's functions at infinity. A classical result by Anderson and Schoen states that if the manifold has pinched negative curvature, the geometric boundary is the same as the Martin boundary. In this paper, we study the Martin boundary for rank 1 manifolds admitting compact quotients. It is proved that a residual set in the geometric boundary can be identified naturally with a subset of the Martin boundary. This gives a partial answer to one of the open problems in geometry collected by Ya…
In this paper, we compute the sectional curvature of the quantomorphism group $\mathcal{D}_q(M)$ whose geodesic equation is the quasi-geostrophic (QG) equation in geophysics and oceanography, for flows with a stream function depending on only one variable. Using this explicit formula, we will also derive a criterion for the curvature operator to be nonpositive and discuss the role of the Froude number and the Rossby number on curvature. The main technique to obtain a usable formula is a simplification of Arnold's general formula in the case where a vector field is close to a Killing field, and…
We study subgroups of fundamental groups of real analytic closed 4-manifolds with nonpositive sectional curvature. In particular, we are interested in the following question: if a subgroup of the fundamental group is not virtually free abelian, does it contain a free group of rank two ? The technique involves the theory of general metric spaces of nonpositive curvature.
The flag curvature is a natural extension of the sectional curvature in Riemannian geometry, and the S-curvature is a non-Riemannian quantity which vanishes for Riemannian metrics. There are (incomplete) non-Riemannian Finsler metrics on an open subset in R^n with negative flag curvature and constant S-curvature. In this paper, we are going to show a global rigidity theorem that every Finsler metric with negative flag curvature and constant S-curvature must be Riemannian if the manifold is compact. We also study the nonpositive flag curvature case.
In the context of Thurstons geometrisation program we address the question which compact aspherical 3-manifolds admit Riemannian metrics of nonpositive curvature. We show that non-geometric Haken manifolds generically, but not always, admit such metrics. More precisely, we prove that a Haken manifold with, possibly empty, boundary of zero Euler characteristic admits metrics of nonpositive curvature if the boundary is non-empty or if at least one atoroidal component occurs in its canonical topological decomposition. Our arguments are based on Thurstons Hyperbolisation Theorem. We give examples …
Combining several previously known arguments, we prove marked length spectrum rigidity for surfaces with nonpositively curved Riemannian metrics away from a finite set of cone-type singularities with cone angles $>2π$. With an additional condition, we can weaken the requirement on one metric to `no conjugate points.'
We show how an operation of inf-convolution can be used to approximate convex functions with $C^{1}$ smooth convex functions on Riemannian manifolds with nonpositive curvature (in a manner that not only is explicit but also preserves some other properties of the original functions, such as ordering, symmetries, infima and sets of minimizers), and we give some applications.
The Hodge decomposition is well-known for compact manifolds. The result has been extended by Kodaira to include non-compact manifolds and $L^2$ forms. We further extend the Hodge decomposition to the Sobolev space $H^1$ for general $k$-forms on non-compact manifolds of nonpositive constant sectional curvature. As a result, we also obtain a decomposition on $\mathbb R^N$.
We show that every closed nonpositively curved manifold with non-trivial volume flux group has zero minimal volume, and admits a finite covering with circle actions whose orbits are homologically essential. This proves a conjecture of Kedra-Kotschick-Morita for this class of manifolds.
We exhibit a closed aspherical 5-manifold of nonpositive curvature that fibers over a circle whose fundamental group is hyperbolic relative to abelian subgroups such that the fiber is a closed aspherical 4-manifold whose fundamental group is not hyperbolic relative to abelian subgroups.
In the asymptotically locally hyperbolic setting it is possible to have metrics with scalar curvature at least -6 and negative mass when the genus of the conformal boundary at infinity is positive. Using inverse mean curvature flow, we prove a Penrose inequality for these negative mass metrics. The motivation comes from a previous result of P. Chruściel and W. Simon, which states that the Penrose inequality we prove implies a static uniqueness theorem for negative mass Kottler metrics.
We show that closed manifolds supporting a nonpositively curved metric with negative $([\frac{n}{4}]+1)$-Ricci curvature, have positive simplicial volume. This answers a special case of a conjecture of Gromov.
We obtain restrictions on the topology of a closed connected manifold B that bounds a (possibly noncompact) manifold whose interior V admits a complete Riemannian metric of nonpositive sectional curvature. If G denotes the fundamental group of B, then a sample result is that B must be aspherical and incompressible if one of the following is true: (1) V has finite volume and G is virtually nilpotent, (2) G is virtually nilpotent and has no proper torsion-free quotients, (3) G is isomorphic to a uniform, irreducible lattice of real rank > 1.
In this article, we consider a closed rank one $C^\infty$ Riemannian manifold $M$ of nonpositive curvature and its universal cover $X$. Let $b_t(x)$ be the Riemannian volume of the ball of radius $t>0$ around $x\in X$, and $h$ the topological entropy of the geodesic flow. We obtain the following Margulis-type asymptotic estimates \[\lim_{t\to \infty}b_t(x)/\frac{e^{ht}}{h}=c(x)\] for some continuous function $c: X\to \mathbb{R}$. We prove that the Margulis function $c(x)$ is in fact $C^1$. If $M$ is a surface of nonpositive curvature without flat strips, we show that $c(x)$ is constant if and …
This paper connects nonpositive sectional curvature of a Riemannian manifold with the displacement convexity of the variance functional on the space $P(M)$ of probability measures over $M$. We show that $M$ has nonpositive sectional curvature and has trivial topology (i.e, is homeomorphic to $\mathbf{R}^n$) if and only if the variance functional on $P(M)$ is displacement convex. This is followed by a Jensen type inequality for the variance functional with respect to Wasserstein barycenters, as well as by a result comparing the variance of the Wasserstein and linear barycenters of a probability…
This paper presents hyperbolic rank rigidity results for rank 1, nonpositively curved spaces. Let $M$ be a compact, rank 1 manifold with nonpositive sectional curvature and suppose that along every geodesic in $M$ there is a parallel vector field making curvature $-a^2$ with the geodesic direction. We prove that $M$ has constant curvature equal to $-a^2$ if $M$ is odd dimensional, or if $M$ is even dimensional and has sectional curvature pinched as follows: $-Λ^2 < K < -λ^2$ where $λ/Λ> >.93$. When $-a^2$ is the upper curvature bound this gives a shorter proof of the hyperbolic rank rigidity t…
This paper accomplishes two things. First, we construct a geometric analog of the rational Tits building for general noncompact, complete, finite volume $n$-manifolds $M$ of bounded nonpositive curvature. Second, we prove that this analog has dimension less than $\lfloor n/2\rfloor$.
We obtain some estimates on the area of the boundary and on the volume of a certain free boundary hypersurface $Σ$ with nonpositive Yamabe invariant in a Riemannian $n$-manifold with bounds for the scalar curvature and the mean curvature of the boundary. Assuming further that $Σ$ is locally volume-minimizing in a manifold $M^n$ with scalar curvature bounded below by a nonpositive constant and mean convex boundary, we conclude that locally $M$ splits along $Σ$. In the case that the scalar curvature of $M$ is at least $-n(n-1)$ and $Σ$ locally minimizes a certain functional inspired by [30], a n…
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…
We give examples of rank one compact surfaces on which there exist recurrent geodesics that cannot be shadowed by periodic geodesics. We build rank one compact surfaces such that ergodic measures on the unit tangent bundle of the surface are not dense in the set of probability measures invariant by the geodesic flow. Finally, we give examples of complete rank one surfaces for which the non wandering set of the geodesic flow is connected, the periodic orbits are dense in that set, yet the geodesic flow is not transitive in restriction to its non wandering set.
A 3-dimensional graph-manifold is composed from simple blocks which are products of compact surfaces with boundary by the circle. Its global structure may be as complicated as one likes and is described by a graph which might be an arbitrary graph. A metric of nonpositive curvature on such a manifold, if it exists, can be described essentially by a finite number of parameters which satisfy a geometrization equation. The aim of the work is to show that this equation is a discrete version of the Maxwell equations of classical electrodynamics, and its solutions, i.e., metrics of nonpositive curva…
We prove new improved endpoint, $L^{p_c}$, $p_c=\tfrac{2(n+1)}{n-1}$, estimates (the "kink point") for eigenfunctions on manifolds of nonpositive curvature. We do this by using energy and dispersive estimates for the wave equation as well as new improved $L^p$, $2<p< p_c$, bounds of Blair and the author \cite{BSTop}, \cite{BSK15} and the classical improved sup-norm estimates of Bérard~\cite{Berard}. Our proof uses Bourgain's \cite{BKak} proof of weak-type estimates for the Stein-Tomas Fourier restriction theorem \cite{Tomas}--\cite{Tomas2} as a template to be able to obtain improved weak-type …
We show that a compact Riemannian $3$-manifold $M$ with strictly convex simply connected boundary and sectional curvature $K\leq a\leq 0$ is isometric to a convex domain in a complete simply connected space of constant curvature $a$, provided that $K\equiv a$ on planes tangent to the boundary of $M$. This yields a characterization of strictly convex surfaces with minimal total curvature in Cartan-Hadamard $3$-manifolds, and extends some rigidity results of Greene-Wu, Gromov, and Schroeder-Strake. Our proof is based on a recent comparison formula for total curvature of Riemannian hypersurfaces,…
We study complete, finite volume $n$-manifolds $M$ of bounded nonpositive sectional curvature. A classical theorem of Gromov says that if such $M$ has negative curvature then it is homeomorphic to the interior of a compact manifold-with-boundary, and we denote this boundary $\partial M$. If $n\geq 3$, we prove that the universal cover of the boundary $\widetilde{\partial M}$ and also the $π_1M$-cover of the boundary $\partial\widetilde M$ have vanishing $(n-2)$-dimensional homology. For $n=4$ the first of these recovers a result of Nguyen Phan saying that each component of the boundary $\parti…
We consider the problem of finding a metric in a given conformal class with prescribed nonpositive scalar curvature and nonpositive boundary mean curvature on a compact manifold with boundary, and establish a necessary and sufficient condition in terms of a conformal invariant that measures the zero set of the target curvatures.
We show that on compact Riemann surfaces of nonpositive curvature, the generalized periods, i.e. the $ν$-th order Fourier coefficients of eigenfunctions $e_λ$ over a closed smooth curve $γ$ which satisfies a natural curvature condition, go to 0 at the rate of $O((\logλ)^{-1/2})$, if $0<|ν|/λ<1-δ$, for any fixed $0<δ<1$. Our result implies, for instance, the generalized periods over geodesic circles on any surfaces with nonpositive curvature would converge to zero at the rate of $O((\logλ)^{-1/2})$. A direct corollary of our results and the QER theorem of Toth and Zelditch is that for a geodesi…
We give new examples of closed smooth 4-manifolds which support singular metrics of nonpositive curvature, but no smooth ones, thereby answering affirmatively a question of Gromov. The obstruction comes from patterns of incompressible 2-tori sufficiently complicated to force branching of geodesics for nonpositively curved metrics.
The Ergodicity of Geodesic Flows on Rank One Manifolds of Nonpositive Curvature
College of Mathematics and Systems Science, Shandong University of Science and Technology(山东科技大学数学与系统科学学院);Department of Mathematics, Southern University of Science and Technology(南方科技大学数学系)
Let $(M,g)$ be a two-dimensional compact boundaryless Riemannian manifold with nonpostive curvature, then we shall give improved estimates for the $L^2$-norms of the restrictions of eigenfunctions to unit-length geodesics, compared to the general results of Burq, Gérard and Tzvetkov \cite{burq}. By earlier results of Bourgain \cite{bourgainef} and the first author \cite{Sokakeya}, they are equivalent to improvements of the general $L^p$-estimates in \cite{soggeest} for $n=2$ and $2<p<6$. The proof uses the fact that the exponential map from any point in $x_0\in M$ is a universal covering map f…
Let $ M^{n+1} $ ($ n \ge 2 $) be a simply-connected space form of sectional curvature $ -κ^2 $ for some $ κ\geq 0 $, and $ I $ an interval not containing $ [-κ,κ] $ in its interior. It is known that the domain of a closed immersed hypersurface of $ M $ whose principal curvatures lie in $ I $ must be diffeomorphic to the sphere $ S^n $. These hypersurfaces are thus topologically rigid. The purpose of this paper is to show that they are also homotopically rigid. More precisely, for fixed $ I $, the space $ \mathscr{F} $ of all such closed hypersurfaces is either empty or weakly homotopy equivale…
If $π:M\rightarrow B$ is a Riemannian Submersion and $M$ has positive sectional curvature, O'Neill's Horizontal Curvature Equation shows that $B$ must also have positive curvature. We show there are Riemannian submersions from compact manifolds with positive Ricci curvature to manifolds that have small neighborhoods of (arbitrarily) negative Ricci curvature, but that there are no Riemannian submersions from manifolds with positive Ricci curvature to manifolds with nonpositive Ricci curvature.
Center of Applied Mathematics, Dongbei University of Finance and Economics(东北财经大学应用数学中心);Department of Mathematics, The University of Queensland(昆士兰大学数学系);School of Mathematics, Liaoning University(辽宁大学数学学院)
The Teichmüller harmonic map flow deforms both a map from an oriented closed surface $M$ into an arbitrary closed Riemannian manifold, and a constant curvature metric on $M$, so as to reduce the energy of the map as quickly as possible [16]. The flow then tries to converge to a branched minimal immersion when it can [16,18]. The only thing that can stop the flow is a finite-time degeneration of the metric on $M$ where one or more collars are pinched. In this paper we show that finite-time degeneration cannot happen in the case that the target has nonpositive sectional curvature, and indeed mor…
An old problem asks whether a Riemannian manifold can be isospectral to a Riemannian orbifold with nontrivial singular set. In this short note we show that under the assumption of Schanuel's conjecture in transcendental number theory, this is impossible whenever the orbifold and manifold in question are length-commensurable compact locally symmetric spaces of nonpositive curvature associated to simple Lie groups.
A classical result due to Blaschke states that for every analytic self-map $f$ of the open unit disk of the complex plane there exists a Blaschke product $B$ such that the zero sets of $f$ and $B$ agree. In this paper we show that there is an analogue statement for critical sets, i.e. for every analytic self-map $f$ of the open unit disk there is even an indestructible Blaschke product $B$ such that the critical sets of $f$ and $B$ coincide. We further relate the problem of describing the critical sets of bounded analytic functions to the problem of characterizing the zero sets of some weighte…
We prove that a Finsler metric is nonpositively curved in the sense of Busemann if and only if it is affinely equivalent to a Riemannian metric of nonpositive sectional curvature. In other terms, such Finsler metrics are precisely Berwald metrics of nonpositive flag curvature. In particular in dimension 2 every such metric is Riemannian or locally isometric to that of a normed plane. In the course of the proof we obtain new characterizations of Berwald metrics in terms of the so-called linear parallel transport.
We associate to any Riemannian symmetric space (of finite or infinite dimension) a L$^*$-algebra, under the assumption that the curvature operator has a fixed sign. L$^*$-algebras are Lie algebras with a pleasant Hilbert space structure. The L$^*$-algebra that we construct is a complete local isomorphism invariant and allows us to classify Riemannian symmetric spaces with fixed-sign curvature operator. The case of nonpositive curvature is emphasized.
In this article, we classify all the Hermitian metrics on a complex product manifold with nonpositive holomorphic bisectional curvature. It is a generalization of a result by Zheng.