Under mild assumptions on a group G, we prove that the class of complete Riemannian n-manifolds of uniformly bounded negative sectional curvatures and with the fundamental groups isomorphic to G breaks into finitely many tangential homotopy types. It follows that many aspherical manifolds do not admit complete negatively curved metrics with prescribed curvature bounds.
For each odd integer r greater than one and not divisible by three we give explicit examples of infinite families of simply and tangentially homotopy equivalent but pairwise non-homeomorphic closed homogeneous spaces with fundamental group isomorphic to Z/r. As an application we construct the first examples of manifolds which possess infinitely many metrics of nonnegative sectional curvature with pairwise non-homeomorphic homogeneous souls of codimension three with trivial normal bundle, such that their curvatures and the diameters of the souls are uniformly bounded. These manifolds are the fi…
We use classical results in smoothing theory to extract information about the rational homotopy groups of the space of negatively curved metrics on a high dimensional manifold. It is also shown that smooth M-bundles over spheres equipped with fiberwise negatively curved metrics, represent elements of finite order in the homotopy groups of the classifying space for smooth M-bundles, provided the dimension of M is large enough.
We give conceptual proofs of some well known results concerning compact non-positively curved locally symmetric spaces. We discuss vanishing and non-vanishing of Pontrjagin numbers and Euler characteristics for these locally symmetric spaces. We also establish vanishing results for Stiefel-Whitney numbers of (finite covers of) the Gromov-Thurston examples of negatively curved manifolds. We mention some geometric corollaries: the MinVol question, a lower bound for degrees of covers having tangential maps to the non-negatively curved duals, and estimates for the complexity of some representation…
We prove that the Teichmüller space $\mathcal{T}^{<0}(M)$ of negatively curved metrics on a hyperbolic manifold $M$ has nontrivial $i$-th rational homotopy groups for some $i> \dim M$. Moreover, some elements of infinite order in $π_i B\mbox{Diff}(M)$ can be represented by bundles over $S^i$ with fiberwise negatively curved metrics.
We give examples of harmonic maps between negatively curved manifolds with special properties. These negatively curved manifolds do not have the homotopy type of a locally symmetric space.
We show that the hyperbolization of polyhedra pulls back regular neighborhoods of PL submanifolds. Applying this to the Riemannian version of the hyperbolization due to Ontaneda gives open complete manifolds of pinched negative curvature that are homotopy equivalent to closed smooth manifolds but contain no smooth spines. We also find open complete negatively pinched manifolds that are homotopy equivalent to closed non-smoothable manifolds.
We prove a general comparison result for homotopic finite $p$-energy $C^{1}$ $p$-harmonic maps $u,v:M\to N$ between Riemannian manifolds, assuming that $M$ is $p$-parabolic and $N$ is complete and non-positively curved. In particular, we construct a homotopy through constant $p$-energy maps, which turn out to be $p$-harmonic when $N$ is compact. Moreover, we obtain uniqueness in the case of negatively curved $N$. This generalizes a well known result in the harmonic setting due to R. Schoen and S.T. Yau.
We study spaces and moduli spaces of Riemannian metrics with non-negative Ricci or non-negative sectional curvature on closed and open manifolds. We construct, in particular, the first classes of manifolds for which these moduli spaces have non-trivial rational homotopy, homology and cohomology groups. We also show that in every dimension at least seven (respectively, at least eight) there exist closed (respectively, open) manifolds for which the space and moduli space of Riemannian metrics with non-negative sectional curvature has infinitely many path components. A completely analogous statem…
The study of higher tangential structures, arising from higher connected covers of Lie groups (String, Fivebrane, Ninebrane structures), require considerable machinery for a full description, especially for connections to geometry and applications. With utility in mind, in this paper we study these structures at the rational level and by considering Lie groups as a starting point for defining each of the higher structures, making close connection to $p_i$-structures. We indicatively call these (rational) Spin-Fivebrane and Spin-Ninebrane structures. We study the space of such structures and ch…
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 study residual finiteness for cyclic central extensions of cocompact arithmetic lattices $Γ< \mathrm{PU}(n,1)$ simple type. We prove that the preimage of $Γ$ in any connected cover of $\mathrm{PU}(n,1)$, in particular the universal cover, is residually finite. This follows from a more general theorem on residual finiteness of extensions whose characteristic class is contained in the span in $H^2(Γ, \mathbb{Z})$ of the Poincaré duals to totally geodesic divisors on the ball quotient $Γ\backslash \mathbb{B}^n$. For $n \ge 4$, if $Γ$ is a congruence lattice, we prove residual finiteness of the…
The stable converse soul question (SCSQ) asks whether, given a real vector bundle \(E\) over a compact manifold, some stabilization \(E\times\R^k\) admits a metric with non-negative (sectional) curvature. We extend previous results to show that the SCSQ has an affirmative answer for all real vector bundles over any simply connected homogeneous manifold with positive curvature, except possibly for the Berger space \(B^{13}\). Along the way, we show that the same is true for all simply connected homogeneous spaces of dimension at most seven, for arbitrary products of simply connected compact ran…
We show that various classes of products of manifolds do not support transitive Anosov diffeomorphisms. Exploiting the Ruelle-Sullivan cohomology class, we prove that the product of a negatively curved manifold with a rational homology sphere does not support transitive Anosov diffeomorphisms. We extend this result to products of finitely many negatively curved manifolds of dimensions at least three with a rational homology sphere that has vanishing simplicial volume. As an application of this study, we obtain new examples of manifolds that do not support transitive Anosov diffeomorphisms, inc…
We study the modular class of $Q$-manifolds, and in particular of negatively graded Lie $\infty$-algebroid. We show the equivalence of several descriptions of those classes, that it matches the classes introduced by various authors and that the notion is homotopy invariant. In the process, the adjoint and coadjoint actions up to homotopy of a Lie $\infty$-algebroid are spelled out. We also wrote down explicitly some dualities, e.g. between representations up to homotopies of Lie $\infty$-algebroids and their $Q$-manifold equivalent, which we hope to be of use for future reference.
We investigate the cross ratio for closed negatively curved manifolds. As one of several applications, we obtain that for two such homotopy equivalent manifolds M and N, the following is true : If M and N have the same marked length spectrum and if the Anosov splitting for M is C^1 then M and N have the same volume.
We study deformations of complex hyperbolic surfaces which furnish the simplest examples of: (i) negatively curved Kähler manifolds and (ii) negatively curved Riemannian manifolds not having {\it constant} curvature. Although such complex surfaces may share the rigidity of quaternionic/octionic hyperbolic manifolds, our main goal is to show that they enjoy nevertheless the flexibility of low-dimensional real hyperbolic manifolds. Namely we define a class of ``bending" deformations of a given (Stein) complex surface $M$ associated with its closed geodesics provided that $M$ is homotopy equivale…
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 …
Let M be any closed, locally symmetric n-manifold (n>1) of nonpositive curvature. Assume that M has no locally Euclidean factors and no factors locally isometric to SL(3,R). Then for any closed Riemannian manifold N and any continuous map f:N -> M, we show there is a C^1 representative in the homotopy class of f with Jacobian bounded by a universal constant C depending only on n and the smallest Ricci curvatures of N and M. This implies that deg(f)<= C Vol(N)/Vol(M). For M negatively curved this was proved by Gromov. Two corollaries of our result are that Minvol(N)>0 whenever deg(f)<>0 and a s…