Using a new type of Jacobi field estimate we will prove a duality theorem for singular Riemannian foliations in complete manifolds of nonnegative sectional curvature.
We prove Wilking's Conjecture about the completeness of dual leaves for the case of Riemannian foliations on nonnegatively curved symmetric spaces. Moreover, we conclude that such foliations split as a product of trivial foliations and a foliation with a single dual leaf.
We show that the moduli space of Riemannian metrics of nonnegative sectional curvature on certain quotients of Brieskorn varieties in dimension 5 has infinitely many path components. The same is true for the corresponding moduli space of positive Ricci curvature.
We determine the structure of the fundamental group of the regular leaves of a closed singular Riemannian foliation on a compact, simply connected Riemannian manifold. We also study closed singular Riemannian foliations whose leaves are homeomorphic to aspherical or to Bieberbach manifolds. These foliations, which we call A-foliations and B-foliations, respectively, generalize isometric torus actions on Riemannian manifolds. We apply our results to the classification problem of compact, simply connected Riemannian 4- and 5-manifolds with positive or nonnegative sectional curvature.
Let $M^n$ be a complete, non-compact and $C^\infty$-smooth Riemannian manifold with nonnegative sectional curvature. Suppose $\Cal S$ is a soul of $M^n$. Then any distance non-increasing retraction $Ψ: M^n \to \Cal S$ must give rise to a $C^\infty$-smooth Riemannian submersion.
B. Wilking introduced the dual foliation associated to a metric foliation in a Riemannian manifold with nonnegative sectional curvature, and proved that when the curvature is strictly positive, the dual foliation contains a single leaf, so that any two points in the ambient space can be joined by a horizontal curve. We show that the same phenomenon often occurs for nonnegatively curved Riemannian submersions even without the strict positive curvature condition, and irrespective of the particular metric.
We prove a sharp logarithmic Sobolev inequality which holds for compact submanifolds without boundary in Riemannian manifold with nonnegative sectional curvature of arbitrary dimension and codimension, while the ambient manifold needs to have a specific Euclid-like property. Like the Michael-Simon Sobolev inequality, this inequality includes a term involving the mean curvature. This extends a recent result of S. Brendle with Euclidean setting.
A flow of metrics, $g_t$, on a manifold is a solution of a differential equation $\dt g = S(g)$, where a geometric functional $S(g)$ is a symmetric $(0,2)$-tensor usually related to some kind of curvature. The mixed sectional curvature of a foliated manifold regulates the deviation of leaves along the leaf geodesics. We introduce and study the flow of metrics on a foliation (called the 'Partial Ricci Flow'), where $S=-2 r$ and $r$ is the partial Ricci curvature of the foliation; in other words, the velocity for a unit vector $X$ orthogonal to the leaf, $-2 r(X,X)$, is the mean value of section…
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.
A Riemannian manifold is called geometrically formal if the wedge product of any two harmonic forms is again harmonic. We classify geometrically formal compact 4-manifolds with nonnegative sectional curvature. If the sectional curvature is strictly positive, the manifold must be homeomorphic to S^4 or diffeomorphic to CP^2. This conclusion stills holds true if the sectional curvature is strictly positive and we relax the condition of geometric formality to the requirement that the length of harmonic 2-forms is not too nonconstant. In particular, the Hopf conjecture on S^2 x S^2 holds in this c…
The Kreck-Stolz s invariant is used to distinguish connected components of the moduli space of positive scalar curvature metrics. We use a formula of Kreck and Stolz to calculate the s invariant for metrics on S^n bundles with nonnegative sectional curvature. We then apply it to show that the moduli spaces of metrics with nonnegative sectional curvature on certain 7-manifolds have infinitely many path components. These include the first non-homogeneous examples of this type and certain positively curved Eschenburg and Aloff-Wallach spaces.
We give new estimates for the extrinsic radius of compact hypersurfaces of the Euclidean space and the open hemisphere in terms of high order mean curvatures. Then we prove pinching results corresponding to theses estimates. We show that under a suitable pinching condition, the hypersurface is diffeomorphic and almost isometric to a geodesic hypersphere.
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 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 $4k+3\geq 7$.
There is a conjecture that a complete Riemannian 3-manifold with bounded sectional curvature, and pointwise pinched nonnegative Ricci curvature, must be flat or compact. We show that this is true when the negative part (if any) of the sectional curvature decays quadratically.
In this article, we will use inverse mean curvature flow to establish an optimal Sobolev-type inequality for hypersurfaces $Σ$ with nonnegative sectional curvature in $\mathbb{H}^n$. As an application, we prove the hyperbolic Alexandrov-Fenchel inequalities for hypersurfaces with nonnegative sectional curvature in $\mathbb{H}^n$: \begin{align*} \int_Σ p_{2k}\geq ω_{n-1}\left[\left(\frac{|Σ|}{ω_{n-1}}\right)^\frac{1}{k}+\left(\frac{|Σ|}{ω_{n-1}}\right)^{\frac{1}{k}\frac{n-1-2k}{n-1}}\right]^k, \end{align*} where $p_i$ is the normalized $i$-th mean curvature. Equality holds if and only if $Σ$ is…
We obtain geometric characterizations of isospectral minimal Riemannian Legendre foliations on compact Sasakian manifolds of constant $ϕ$-sectional curvature.
We apply various topological methods to distinguish connected components of moduli spaces of complete Riemannian metrics of nonnegative sectional curvature on open manifolds. The new geometric ingredient is that souls of nearby nonnegatively curved metrics are ambiently isotopic.
Given an Einstein structure with positive scalar curvature on a four-dimensional Riemannian manifolds, that is $Ric=λg$ for some positive constant $λ$. For convenience, the Ricci curvature is always normalized to $Ric=1$. A basic problem is to classify four-dimensional Einstein manifolds with positive or nonnegative curvature and $Ric=1$. In this paper, we firstly show that if the sectional curvature satisfies $K\le M_1= \frac{\sqrt{3}}2\approx 0.866025$, then the sectional curvature will be nonnegative. Next, we prove a family of rigidity theorems of Einstein four-manifolds with nonnegative s…
Let $M^4$ be a PL-manifold of nonnegative curvature that is homeomorphic to a product of two spheres, $S^2 \times S^2$. We prove that $M$ is a direct metric product of two spheres endowed with some polyhedral metrics. In other words, $M$ is a direct metric product of the surfaces of two convex polyhedra in $\mathbb{R}^3$. The background for the question is the following. The classical H.Hopf's hypothesis states: for any Riemannian metric on $S^2 \times S^2$ of nonnegative sectional curvature the curvature cannot be strictly positive at all points. There is no quick answer to this question: it …
We prove a sharp Sobolev inequality on manifolds with nonnegative Ricci curvature. Moreover, we prove a Michael-Simon inequality for submanifolds in manifolds with nonnegative sectional curvature. Both inequalities depend on the asymptotic volume ratio of the ambient manifold.
In this paper, we introduce the weighted mixed (sectional, Ricci and scalar) curvature of a foliated (and almost-product) Riemannian manifold $(M,g)$ equipped with a vector field $X$. We define several functions ($q$th Ricci type curvatures), which "interpolate" between the weighed sectional and Ricci curvatures. The novel concepts of the "mixed curvature-dimension" condition and "synthetic dimension of a distribution" allow us to update the estimate of the diameter of a compact Riemannian foliation and to prove new splitting theorems for almost-product manifolds of nonnegative/nonpositive wei…
In this paper, we prove a general maximum principle for the time dependent Lichnerowicz heat equation on symmetric tensors coupled with the Ricci flow on complete Riemannian manifolds. As an application we construct complete manifolds with bounded nonnegative sectional curvature of dimension greater than or equal to four such that the Ricci flow does not preserve the nonnegativity of the sectional curvature, even though the nonnegativity of the sectional curvature was proved to be preserved by Hamilton in dimension three. The example is the first of this type. This fact is proved through a gen…
We prove a result on equivariant deformations of flat bundles, and as a corollary, we obtain two ``splitting in a finite cover'' theorems for isometric group actions on Riemannian manifolds with infinite fundamental groups, where the manifolds are either compact of nonnegative Ricci curvature, or complete of nonnegative sectional curvature.
The classical Hadamard three circle theorem is generalized to complete Kähler manifolds. More precisely, we show that the nonnegativity of the holomorphic sectional curvature is a necessary and sufficient condition for the three circle theorem. As corollaries, two sharp monotonicity formulae for holomorphic functions are derived. Among applications, we derive sharp dimension estimates (with rigidity) of holomorphic functions with polynomial growth when the holomorphic sectional curvature is nonnegative. When the bisectional curvature is nonnegative, this was due to Ni. Also we study holomorphi…
We show that a certain family of cohomogeneity one manifolds does not admit an invariant metric of nonnegative sectional curvature, unless it admits one with positive curvature. As a consequence, the classification of nonnegatively curved cohomogeneity one manifolds in dimension 7 is reduced to only one further family of candidates
Let $X_{\mathbb{C}}$ be a smooth real affine variety with compact real points $X_{\mathbb{R}}$. We show that $X_{\mathbb{C}}$ is diffeomorphic to the normal bundle of $X_{\mathbb{R}}$ provided that $X_{\mathbb{C}}$ admits a complete Riemannian metric of nonnegative sectional curvature which is also invariant under the conjugation.
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.
In this note we prove the following result: There is a positive constant $ε(n,Λ)$ such that if $M^n$ is a simply connected compact K$\ddot{a}$hler manifold with sectional curvature bounded from above by $Λ$, diameter bounded from above by 1, and with holomorphic bisectional curvature $H \geq -ε(n,Λ)$, then $M^n$ is diffeomorphic to the product $M_1\times ... \times M_k$, where each $M_i$ is either a complex projective space or an irreducible K$\ddot{a}$hler-Hermitian symmetric space of rank $\geq 2$. This resolves a conjecture of F. Fang under the additional upper bound restrictions on section…
The mixed scalar curvature of a foliated Riemannian manifold, i.e., an averaged mixed sectional curvature, has been considered by several geometers. We explore the Yamabe type problem: to prescribe the constant mixed scalar curvature for a foliation by a conformal change of the metric in normal directions only. For a harmonic foliation, we derive the leafwise elliptic equation and explore the corresponding nonlinear heat type equation. We assume that the leaves are compact submanifolds and the manifold is fibered instead of being foliated, and use spectral parameters of certain Schrödinger ope…
We prove that all currently known examples of manifolds with nonnegative sectional curvature satisfy a stronger condition: their curvature operator can be modified with a 4-form to become positive-semidefinite.
In this paper, we study the topology of complete noncompact Riemannian manifolds with asymptotically nonnegative Ricci curvature. We show that a complete noncompact manifold with asymptoticaly nonnegative Ricci curvature and sectional curvature decay at most quadratically is diffeomorphic to a Euclidean n-space R^n under some conditions on the density of rays starting from the base point p or on the volume growth of geodesic balls in M.
Let $M^n$ be a closed manifold of almost nonnegative sectional curvature and nonzero first de Rham cohomology group. For any $[θ] \in H^1_{dR}(M^n), [θ] \neq 0$, we show that the Morse- Novikov cohomology group $H^p(M^n, θ)$ vanishes for any $p$. A similar result holds for a closed manifold of almost nonnegative Ricci curvature under the additional assumption that its curvature operator is uniformly bounded from below.
The goal of this article is to study the pinching problem proposed by S.-T. Yau in 1990 replacing sectional curvature by one weaker condition on biorthogonal curvature. Moreover, we classify 4-dimensional compact oriented Riemannian manifolds with nonnegative biorthogonal curvature. In particular, we obtain a partial answer to Yau Conjecture on pinching theorem for 4-dimensional compact manifolds.
In a previous paper, we constructed complete manifolds of positive Ricci curvature with quadratically asymptotically nonnegative curvature and infinite topological type but dimension $\ge 6$. The purpose of the present paper is to use a different way to exhibit a family of complete $I$-dimensinal ($I\ge5$) Riemannian manifolds of positive Ricci curvature, quadratically asymptotically nonnegative sectional curvature, and certain infinite Betti number $b_j$ ($2\le j\le I-2$).
A cohomogeneity one manifold is a manifold with the action of a compact Lie group, whose quotient is one dimensional. Such manifolds are of interest in Riemannian geometry, in the context of nonnegative sectional curvature, as well as in other areas of geometry and in physics. In this paper we classify compact simply connected cohomogeneity one manifolds in dimensions 5, 6 and 7. We also show that all such manifolds admit metrics of nonnegative sectional curvature, with the possible exception of two families of manifolds.
In this paper we generalize the Local Removable Singularity Theorem in [16] for minimal laminations to the case of weak $H$-laminations (with $H\in \mathbb{R}$ constant) in a punctured ball of a Riemannian three-manifold. We also obtain a curvature estimate for any weak CMC foliation (with possibly varying constant mean curvature from leaf to leaf) of a compact Riemannian three-manifold $N$ with boundary solely in terms of a bound of the absolute sectional curvature of $N$ and of the distance to the boundary of $N$. We then apply these results to classify weak CMC foliations of $\mathbb{R}^3$ …
In this paper we will show the following result: Let $\mathcal{N} $ be a complete (noncompact) connected orientable Riemannian three-manifold with nonnegative scalar curvature $S \geq 0$ and bounded sectional curvature $ K_{s} \leq K $. Suposse that $Σ\subset \mathcal{N} $ is a complete orientable connected area-minimizing cylinder so that $π_1 (Σ) \in π_1 (\mathcal{N})$. Then $\mathcal{N}$ is locally isometric either to $\mathbb{S} ^1 \times \mathbb{R} ^2 $ or $\mathbb{S}^1 \times \mathbb{S}^1 \times \mathbb{R}$ (with the standard product metric). As a corollary, we will obtain: Let $\mathcal…
In this note we show that every (real or complex) vector bundle over a compact rank one symmetric space carries, after taking the Whitney sum with a trivial bundle of sufficiently large rank, a metric with nonnegative sectional curvature. We also examine the case of complex vector bundles over other manifolds, and give upper bounds for the rank of the trivial bundle that is necessary to add when the base is a sphere.