The index growth and multiplicity of closed geodesics

In the recent paper [31] of Long and Duan (2009), we classified closed geodesics on Finsler manifolds into rational and irrational two families, and gave a complete understanding on the index growth properties of iterates of rational closed geodesics. This study yields that a rational closed geodesic cannot be the only closed geodesic on every irreversible or reversible (including Riemannian) Finsler sphere, and that there exist at least two distinct closed geodesics on every compact simply connected irreversible or reversible (including Riemannian) Finsler 3-dimensional manifold. In this paper, we study the index growth properties of irrational closed geodesics on Finsler manifolds. This study allows us to extend results in [31] of Long and Duan (2009) on rational, and in [12] of Duan and Long (2007), [39] of Rademacher (2010), and [40] of Rademacher (2008) on completely non-degenerate closed geodesics on spheres and CP² to every compact simply connected Finsler manifold. Then we prove the existence of at least two distinct closed geodesics on every compact simply connected irreversible or reversible (including Riemannian) Finsler 4-dimensional manifold.     

On <Emphasis Type="Italic">δ</Emphasis>-homogeneous Riemannian manifolds. II

We continue the study of the δ-homogeneous Riemannian manifolds defined in a more general case by V. N. Berestovski? and C. P. Plaut. Each of these manifolds has nonnegative sectional curvature. We prove in particular that every naturally reductive compact homogeneous Riemannian manifold of positive Euler characteristic is δ-homogeneous.     

Multiple closed geodesics on 3-spheres

This paper is devoted to a study on closed geodesics on Finsler and Riemannian spheres. We call a prime closed geodesic on a Finsler manifold rational, if the basic normal form decomposition (cf. [Y. Long, Bott formula of the Maslov-type index theory, Pacific J. Math. 187 (1999) 113-149]) of its linearized Poincaré map contains no 2×2 rotation matrix with rotation angle which is an irrational multiple of π, or irrational otherwise. We prove that if there exists only one prime closed geodesic on a d-dimensional irreversible Finsler sphere with d?2, it cannot be rational. Then we further prove that there exist always at least two distinct prime closed geodesics on every irreversible Finsler 3-dimensional sphere. Our method yields also at least two geometrically distinct closed geodesics on every reversible Finsler as well as Riemannian 3-dimensional sphere. We prove also such results hold for all compact simply connected 3-dimensional manifolds with irreversible or reversible Finsler as well as Riemannian metrics.     

Classification of generalized normal homogeneous Riemannian manifolds of positive Euler characteristic

The authors give a short survey of previous results on generalized normal homogeneous (δ-homogeneous, in other terms) Riemannian manifolds, forming a new proper subclass of geodesic orbit spaces with nonnegative sectional curvature, which properly includes the class of all normal homogeneous Riemannian manifolds. As a continuation and an application of these results, they prove that the family of all compact simply connected indecomposable generalized normal homogeneous Riemannian manifolds with positive Euler characteristic, which are not normal homogeneous, consists exactly of all generalized flag manifolds Sp(l)/U(1)⋅Sp(l−1)=CP2l−1, l?2, supplied with invariant Riemannian metrics of positive sectional curvature with the pinching constants (the ratio of the minimal sectional curvature to the maximal one) in the open interval (1/16,1/4). This implies very unusual geometric properties of the adjoint representation of Sp(l), l?2. Some unsolved questions are suggested.     

On the volume of the intersection of two geodesic balls

The first author and D. Kunszenti-Kovács (2010) [1] proved that if the volume of the intersection of three geodesic balls of a complete connected Riemannian manifold depends only on the center-center distances and the radii of the balls, then the manifold is one of the simply connected spaces of constant curvature. In this paper, we study the geometrical consequences of the analogous condition for pairs of geodesic balls. We show that in a complete, connected and simply connected Riemannian manifold, the volume of the intersection of two small geodesic balls depends only on the distance between the centers and the radii if and only if the space is harmonic. It is also shown that if in a Riemannian manifold the volume of the intersection of two small geodesic balls of equal radii depends only on the distance between the centers and the common value of the radii, then the space is Einstein, and if we assume in addition that the space is symmetric, then it must be Osserman and hence two-point homogeneous.     

Stability problems in a theorem of F. Schur

Schur's theorem states that an isotropic Riemannian manifold of dimension greater than two has constant curvature. It is natural to guess that compact almost isotropic Riemannian manifolds of dimension greater than two are close to spaces of almost constant curvature. We take the curvature anisotropy as the discrepancy of the sectional curvatures at a point. The main result of this paper is that Riemannian manifolds in Cheeger's class ℜ(n,d,V,A) withL ₁-small integral anisotropy haveL _p-small change of the sectional curvature over the manifold. We also estimate the deviation of the metric tensor from that of constant curvature in theW _p ² -norm, and prove that compact almost isotropic spaces inherit the differential structure of a space form. These stability results are based on the generalization of Schur' theorem to metric spaces.     

Singular Riemannian foliations on simply connected spaces

A singular foliation on a complete Riemannian manifold is said to be Riemannian if each geodesic that is perpendicular at one point to a leaf remains perpendicular to every leaf it meets. The singular foliation is said to admit sections if each regular point is contained in a totally geodesic complete immersed submanifold that meets every leaf orthogonally and whose dimension is the codimension of the regular leaves. A typical example of such a singular foliation is the partition by orbits of a polar action, e.g. the orbits of the adjoint action of a compact Lie group on itself.We prove that a singular Riemannian foliation with compact leaves that admits sections on a simply connected space has no exceptional leaves, i.e., each regular leaf has trivial normal holonomy. We also prove that there exists a convex fundamental domain in each section of the foliation and in particular that the space of leaves is a convex Coxeter orbifold.     

Killing forms on symmetric spaces

Killing forms on Riemannian manifolds are differential forms whose covariant derivative is totally skew-symmetric. We show that a compact simply connected symmetric space carries a non-parallel Killing p-form (p?2) if and only if it isometric to a Riemannian product Sk×N, where Sk is a round sphere and k>p.     

Immersions of cohomogeneity one Riemannian manifolds

This work deals with positively curved compact Riemannian manifolds which are acted on by a closed Lie group of isometries whose principal orbits have codimension one and are isotropy irreducible homogeneous spaces. For such manifolds we can show that their universal covering manifold may be isometrically immersed as a hypersurface of revolution in an euclidean space.     

2-step nilpotent Lie groups of higher rank

We construct a family of simply connected 2-step nilpotent Lie groups of higher rank such that every geodesic lies in a flat. These are as Riemannian manifolds irreducible and arise from real representations of compact Lie algebras. Moreover we show that groups of Heisenberg type do not even infinitesimally have higher rank. Received: 2 July 2001 / Revised version: 19 October 2001     

Jost maps, ball-homogeneous and harmonic manifolds

Given a real number ε>0, small enough, an associated Jost map J_ε between two Riemannian manifolds is defined. Then we prove that connected Riemannian manifolds for which the center of mass of each small geodesic ball is the center of the ball (i.e. for which the identity is a J_ε map) are ball-homogeneous. In the analytic case we characterize such manifolds in terms of the Euclidean Laplacian and we show that they have constant scalar curvature. Under some restriction on the Ricci curvature we prove that Riemannian analytic manifolds for which the center of mass of each small geodesic ball is the center of the ball are locally and weakly harmonic.     

Closed manifolds with small excess

In this article, we study closed Riemannian manifolds with small excess. We show that a closed connected Riemannian manifold with Ricci curvature and injectivity radius bounded from below is homeomorphic to a sphere if it has sufficiently small excess. We also show that a closed connected Riemannian manifold with weakly bounded geometry is a homotopy sphere if its excess is small enough.     

Homogeneous spaces of curvature bounded below

We prove that every locally connected quotient G/H of a locally compact, connected, first countable topological group G by a compact subgroup H admits a G-invariant inner metric with curvature bounded below. Every locally compact homogeneous space of curvature bounded below is isometric to such a space. These metric spaces generalize the notion of Riemannian homogeneous space to infinite dimensional groups and quotients which are never (even infinite dimensional) manifolds. We study the geometry of these spaces, in particular of non-negatively curved homogeneous spaces. Dedicated to the memory of A. D. Alexandrov     

Rigidity for critical metrics of the volume functional

Geodesic balls in a simply connected space forms , or are distinguished manifolds for comparison in bounded Riemannian geometry. In this paper we show that they have the maximum possible boundary volume among Miao–Tam critical metrics with connected boundary provided that the boundary of the manifold has a lower bound for the Ricci curvature. In the same spirit we also extend a rigidity theorem due to Boucher et al. 7 and Shen 18 to n‐dimensional static metrics with positive constant scalar curvature, which gives us a partial answer to the Cosmic no‐hair conjecture.     

Mirror duality in a Joyce manifold

Previously the two of the authors defined a notion of dual Calabi-Yau manifolds in a G₂ manifold, and described a process to obtain them. Here we apply this process to a compact G₂ manifold, constructed by Joyce, and as a result we obtain a pair of Borcea-Voisin Calabi-Yau manifolds, which are known to be mirror duals of each other.     

The higher rank rigidity theorem for manifolds with no focal points

We say that a Riemannian manifold M has rank M ≥ k if every geodesic in M admits at least k parallel Jacobi fields. The Rank Rigidity Theorem of Ballmann and Burns–Spatzier, later generalized by Eberlein–Heber, states that a complete, irreducible, simply connected Riemannian manifold M of rank k ≥ 2 (the “higher rank” assumption) whose isometry group Γ satisfies the condition that the Γ-recurrent vectors are dense in SM is a symmetric space of noncompact type. This includes, for example, higher rank M which admit a finite volume quotient. We adapt the method of Ballmann and Eberlein–Heber to prove a generalization of this theorem where the manifold M is assumed only to have no focal points. We then use this theorem to generalize to no focal points a result of Ballmann–Eberlein stating that for compact manifolds of nonpositive curvature, rank is an invariant of the fundamental group.     

On δ-homogeneous Riemannian manifolds

We study in this paper previously defined by V.N. Berestovskii and C.P. Plaut δ-homogeneous spaces in the case of Riemannian manifolds and prove that they constitute a new proper subclass of geodesic orbit (g.o.) spaces with non-negative sectional curvature, which properly includes the class of all normal homogeneous Riemannian spaces.     

Simply connected Voisin manifolds of dimension four

Voisin constructed a series of examples of simply connected compact Kähler manifolds of even dimension, which do not have the rational homotopy type of a complex projective manifold starting from dimension six. In this note, we prove that Voisin's examples of dimension four also do not have the rational homotopy type of a complex projective manifold. Oguiso constructed simply connected compact Kähler manifolds starting from dimension four, which cannot deform to a complex projective manifold under a small deformation. We also prove that Oguiso's examples do not have the rational homotopy type of a complex projective manifold.     

Eigenvalue estimates of the Dirac operator depending on the Ricci tensor

We prove a new lower bound for the first eigenvalue of the Dirac operator on a compact Riemannian spin manifold by refined Weitzenb?ck techniques. It applies to manifolds with harmonic curvature tensor and depends on the Ricci tensor. Examples show how it behaves compared to other known bounds. Received: 20 April 2001 / Published online: 5 September 2002