Weil-Petersson metric in the moduli space of compact polarized Kähler-Einstein manifolds of zero first Chern class

We study the problem of computing the curvature of the Weil-Petersson metric of the moduli space of general compact polarized Kähler-Einstein manifolds of zero first Chern class. We use canonical lifting of vector fields from the moduli space to the total deformation space to obtain a formula for the curvature of the Weil-Petersson metric. From this formula we obtain negative bisectional curvature for certain directions. This formula also reprove and explain the recent result of Schumacher that the holomorphic sectional curvature of the Weil-Petersson metric for K3-surfaces and symplectic manifolds are negative.     

On a natural algebraic affine connection on the space of almost complex structures and the curvature of teichmüller space with respect to its Weil-Petersson metric

A formula for the sectional curvature of Teichmüller space with respect to the Weil-Petersson metric is derived in terms of the Laplace-Beltrami operator on functions. It will be shown that the sectional curvature as well as the holomorphic sectional curvature and Ricci curvature are negative. Bounds on the holomorphic and the Ricci curvature are given.     

Weil-Petersson geometry of Teichmüller–Coxeter complex and its finite rank property

On a Teichmüller space, the Weil-Petersson metric is known to be incomplete. Taking metric and geodesic completions result in two distinct spaces, where the Hopf-Rinow theorem is no longer relevant due to the singular behavior of the Weil-Petersson metric. We construct a geodesic completion of the Teichmüller space through the formalism of Coxeter complex with the Teichmüller space as its non-linear non-homogeneous fundamental domain. We then show that the metric and geodesic completions both satisfy a finite rank property, demonstrating a similarity with the non-compact symmetric spaces of semi-simple Lie groups.     

Topological dynamics of the Weil-Petersson geodesic flow

We prove topological transitivity for the Weil-Petersson geodesic flow for real two-dimensional moduli spaces of hyperbolic structures. Our proof follows a new approach that combines the density of singular unit tangent vectors, the geometry of cusps and convexity properties of negative curvature. We also show that the Weil-Petersson geodesic flow has: horseshoes, invariant sets with positive topological entropy, and that there are infinitely many hyperbolic closed geodesics, whose number grows exponentially in length. Furthermore, we note that the volume entropy is infinite.     

The Weil-Petersson geometry on the thick part of the moduli space of Riemann surfaces

In the thick part of the moduli space of Riemann surfaces, we show that the sectional curvature of the Weil-Petersson metric is bounded independently of the genus of the surface.

     

Metrics on complex manifolds

In this note we discuss various canonical metrics on complex manifolds. A generalization of the Bergman metric is proposed and the relations of metrics on moduli spaces are commented. At last, we review some existence theorems of solutions to the Strominger system.     

Remarks on invariant metrics on Teichmüller space

We make some comparisons concerning the induced infinitesimal Kobayashi metric, the induced Siegel metric, the L² Bergman metric, the Teichmüller metric and the Weil-Petersson metric on the Teichmüller space of a compact Riemann surface of genus g?2. As a consequence, among others, we show that the moduli space has finite volume with respect to the L² Bergman metric. This answers a question raised by Nag in 1989.     

Ricci curvature in the neighborhood of rank-one symmetric spaces

We study the Ricci curvature of a Riemannian metric as a differential operator acting on the space of metrics close (in a weighted functional spaces topology) to the standard metric of a rank-one noncompact symmetric space. We prove that any symmetric bilinear field close enough to the standard may be realized as the Ricci curvature of a unique close metric if its decay rate at infinity (its weight) belongs to some precisely known interval. We also study what happens if the decay rate is too small or too large.     

Weil-Petersson Areas of The Moduli Spaces Of Tori

We study the Teichmüller spaces of torus with one branch point of order v and of torus with a totally geodesic boundary curve of length m, respectively. Applying the obtained results for the corresponding moduli spaces we find that the Weil-Petersson area of the moduli space of torus with one conical point of order v is (π²/6)(1 - l/v²) and that of the moduli space of torus with a totally geodesic boundary curve of length m is π²/6 + m²/24.     

$\Omega$-admissible theory II. Deligne pairings over moduli spaces of punctured Riemann surfaces

In Part I, Deligne-Riemann-Roch isometry is generalized for punctured Riemann surfaces equipped with quasi-hyperbolic metrics. This is achieved by proving the Mean Value Lemmas, which explicitly explain how metrized Deligne pairings for -admissible metrized line bundles depend on . In Part II, we first introduce several line bundles over Knudsen-Deligne-Mumford compactification of the moduli space (or rather the algebraic stack) of stable N-pointed algebraic curves of genus g, which are rather natural and include Weil-Petersson, Takhtajan-Zograf and logarithmic Mumford line bundles. Then we use Deligne-Riemann-Roch isomorphism and its metrized version (proved in Part I) to establish some fundamental relations among these line bundles. Finally, we compute first Chern forms of the metrized Weil-Petersson, Takhtajan-Zograf and logarithmic Mumford line bundles by using results of Wolpert and Takhtajan-Zograf, and show that the so-called Takhtajan-Zograf metric on the moduli space is algebraic. Received February 14, 2000 / Accepted August 18, 2000 / Published online February 5, 2001     

Smoothing out positively curved metric cones by Ricci expanders

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.     

Space of Ricci Flows I

In this paper, we study the moduli spaces of m‐dimensional, κ‐noncollapsed Ricci flow solutions with bounded $\int |Rm|^{{m}/{2}}$ and bounded scalar curvature. We show a weak compactness theorem for such moduli spaces and apply it to study the estimates of isoperimetric constants, the Kähler‐Ricci flows, and the moduli spaces of gradient shrinking solitons. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Ricci curvature of Markov chains on metric spaces

We define the coarse Ricci curvature of metric spaces in terms of how much small balls are closer (in Wasserstein transportation distance) than their centers are. This definition naturally extends to any Markov chain on a metric space. For a Riemannian manifold this gives back, after scaling, the value of Ricci curvature of a tangent vector. Examples of positively curved spaces for this definition include the discrete cube and discrete versions of the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. Moreover this generalization is consistent with the Bakry-Émery Ricci curvature for Brownian motion with a drift on a Riemannian manifold.Positive Ricci curvature is shown to imply a spectral gap, a Lévy-Gromov-like Gaussian concentration theorem and a kind of modified logarithmic Sobolev inequality. The bounds obtained are sharp in a variety of examples.     

Mass transportation and rough curvature bounds for discrete spaces

We introduce and study rough (approximate) lower curvature bounds for discrete spaces and for graphs. This notion agrees with the one introduced in [J. Lott, C. Villani, Ricci curvature for metric-measure spaces via optimal transport, Ann. of Math. 169 (2009), in press] and [K.T. Sturm, On the geometry of metric measure spaces. I, Acta Math. 196 (2006) 65-131], in the sense that the metric measure space which is approximated by a sequence of discrete spaces with rough curvature ?K will have curvature ?K in the sense of [J. Lott, C. Villani, Ricci curvature for metric-measure spaces via optimal transport, Ann. of Math. 169 (2009), in press; K.T. Sturm, On the geometry of metric measure spaces. I, Acta Math. 196 (2006) 65-131]. Moreover, in the converse direction, discretizations of metric measure spaces with curvature ?K will have rough curvature ?K. We apply our results to concrete examples of homogeneous planar graphs.     

Non-branching geodesics and optimal maps in strong CD(K,\infty )-spaces

We prove that in metric measure spaces where the entropy functional is \(K\) -convex along every Wasserstein geodesic any optimal transport between two absolutely continuous measures with finite second moments lives on a non-branching set of geodesics. As a corollary we obtain that in these spaces there exists only one optimal transport plan between any two absolutely continuous measures with finite second moments and this plan is given by a map. The results are applicable in metric measure spaces having Riemannian Ricci curvature bounded below, and in particular they hold also for Gromov-Hausdorff limits of Riemannian manifolds with Ricci curvature bounded from below by some constant.     

Moduli spaces of critical Riemannian metrics in dimension four

We obtain a compactness result for various classes of Riemannian metrics in dimension four; in particular our method applies to anti-self-dual metrics, Kähler metrics with constant scalar curvature, and metrics with harmonic curvature. With certain geometric non-collapsing assumptions, the moduli space can be compactified by adding metrics with orbifold-like singularities. Similar results were obtained for Einstein metrics in (J. Amer. Math. Soc. 2(3) (1989) 455, Invent. Math. 97 (2) (1989) 313, Invent. Math. 101(1) (1990) 101), but our analysis differs substantially from the Einstein case in that we do not assume any pointwise Ricci curvature bound.     

Canonical measures on the moduli spaces of compact Riemann surfaces

We study some explicit relations between the canonical line bundle and the Hodge bundle over moduli spaces for low genus. This leads to a natural measure on the moduli space of every genus which is related to the Siegel symplectic metric on Siegel upper half-space as well as to the Hodge metric on the Hodge bundle.     

On the geometry of moduli spaces

We construct a Kähler metric on the moduli spaces of compact complex manifolds with c₁,<0 and of polarized compact Kähler manifolds with c₁=0, which is a generalization of the Petersson-Well metric. It is induced by the variation of the Kähler-Einstein metrics on the fibers that exist according to the Calabi-Yau theorem. We compute the above metric on the moduli spaces of polarized tori and symplectic manifolds. It turns out to be the Maaß metric on the Siegel upper half space and the Bergmann metric on a symmetric space of type III resp. In particular it is Kähler-Einstein with negative curvature.Dedicated to Karl SteinHeisenberg-Stipendiat der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft     

Singular Ricci Solitons and Their Stability under the Ricci Flow

We introduce certain spherically symmetric singular Ricci solitons and study their stability under the Ricci flow from a dynamical PDE point of view. The solitons in question exist for all dimensions n + 1 ≥ 3, and all have a point singularity where the curvature blows up; their evolution under the Ricci flow is in sharp contrast to the evolution of their smooth counterparts. In particular, the family of diffeomorphisms associated with the Ricci flow “pushes away” from the singularity causing the evolving soliton to open up immediately becoming an incomplete (but non-singular) metric. The main objective of this paper is to study the local-in time stability of this dynamical evolution, under spherically symmetric perturbations of the singular initial metric. We prove a local well-posedness result for the Ricci flow in suitably weighted Sobolev spaces, which in particular implies that the “opening up” of the singularity persists for the perturbations as well.     

Spaces and moduli spaces of Riemannian metrics

These notes present and survey results about spaces and moduli spaces of complete Riemannian metrics with curvature bounds on open and closed manifolds, here focussing mainly on connectedness and disconnectedness properties. They also discuss several open problems and questions in the field.