Rigidity of Einstein 4-manifolds with positive curvature

An Einstein metric with positive scalar curvature on a 4-manifold is said to be normalized if Ric=1. A basic problem in Riemannian geometry is to classify Einstein 4-manifolds with positive sectional curvature in the category of either topology, diffeomorphism, or isometry. It is shown in this paper that if the sectional curvature K of a normalized Einstein 4-manifold M satisfies the lower bound K≥ε₀, ε₀≡(-23)/120≈0.102843, or condition (b) of Theorem 1.1, then it is isometric to either S ⁴, RP ⁴ with constant sectional curvature K=1/3, or CP ² with the normalized Fubini-Study metric. As a consequence, both the normalized moduli spaces of Einstein metrics which satisfy either one of the above two conditions on S ⁴ and CP ² contain only a single point. In particular, if M is a smooth 4-manifold which is homeomorphic to either S ⁴, RP ⁴, or CP ² but not diffeomorphic to any of the three manifolds, then it can not support any normalized Einstein metric which satisfies either one of the conditions. Oblatum 4-II-1999 & 4-V-2000?Published online: 16 August 2000     

Global rigidity of holomorphic Riemannian metrics on compact complex 3-manifolds

We study compact complex 3-manifolds M admitting a (locally homogeneous) holomorphic Riemannian metric g. We prove the following: (i) If the Killing Lie algebra of g has a non trivial semi-simple part, then it preserves some holomorphic Riemannian metric on M with constant sectional curvature; (ii) If the Killing Lie algebra of g is solvable, then, up to a finite unramified cover, M is a quotient Γ\G, where Γ is a lattice in G and G is either the complex Heisenberg group, or the complex SOL group. S. Dumitrescu was partially supported by the ANR Grant BLAN 06-3-137237.     

Manifolds with small Dirac eigenvalues are nilmanifolds

Consider the class of n-dimensional Riemannian spin manifolds with bounded sectional curvatures and bounded diameter, and almost non-negative scalar curvature. Let r = 1 if n = 2,3 and r = 2^[n/2]-1 + 1 if n ≥ 4. We show that if the square of the Dirac operator on such a manifold has r small eigenvalues, then the manifold is diffeomorphic to a nilmanifold and has trivial spin structure. Equivalently, if M is not a nilmanifold or if M is a nilmanifold with a non-trivial spin structure, then there exists a uniform lower bound on the r-th eigenvalue of the square of the Dirac operator. If a manifold with almost non-negative scalar curvature has one small Dirac eigenvalue, and if the volume is not too small, then we show that the metric is close to a Ricci-flat metric on M with a parallel spinor. In dimension 4 this implies that M is either a torus or a K3-surface.      

Hyperfoliations on compact 3-manifolds with restrictions on the external curvature of leaves

C∞-foliations of codimension 1 on compact Riemannian 3-manifolds are studied. New classes of foliations, namely hyperbolic, elliptic, and parabolic foliations, are considered. Examples of such foliations are presented. In particular, aC∞-metric of nonnegative sectional curvature onS ³ such that the Reeb foliation is parabolic with respect to this metric is constructed. Analytic 3-manifolds with sectional curvature of constant sign admitting parabolic foliations are classified. Translated fromMatematicheskie Zametki, Vol. 63, No. 5, pp. 651–659, May, 1998. The author wishes to express his thanks to Professor A. A. Borisenko for his supervision, and to Yu. A. Nikolaevskii for useful advice in the process of preparing the present paper.     

Contact metric manifolds with <Emphasis Type="Italic">η</Emphasis>-parallel torsion tensor

We show that a non-Sasakian contact metric manifold with η-parallel torsion tensor and sectional curvatures of plane sections containing the Reeb vector field different from 1 at some point, is a (k, μ)-contact manifold. In particular for the standard contact metric structure of the tangent sphere bundle the torsion tensor is η-parallel if and only if M is of constant curvature, in which case its associated pseudo-Hermitian structure is CR- integrable. Next we show that if the metric of a non-Sasakian (k, μ)-contact manifold (M, g) is a gradient Ricci soliton, then (M, g) is locally flat in dimension 3, and locally isometric to E ⁿ⁺¹ × S ⁿ (4) in higher dimensions.      

On Einstein Manifolds of Positive Sectional Curvature

Let (M, g) be a compact oriented four-dimensional Einstein manifold. If M has positive intersection form and g has non-negative sectional curvature, we show that, up to rescaling and isometry, (M, g) is ₂, with its standard Fubini–Study metric.     

Holomorphically planar conformal vector fields on contact metric manifolds

We study holomorphically planar conformal vector fields (HPCV) on contact metric manifolds under some curvature conditions. In particular, we have studied HPCV fields on (i) contact metric manifolds with pointwise constant ξ-sectional curvature (under this condition M is either K-contact or V is homothetic), (ii) Einstein contact metric manifolds (in this case M becomes K contact), (iii) contact metric manifolds with parallel Ricci tensor (under this condition M is either K-contact Einstein or is locally isometric to E ⁿ⁺¹×S ⁿ (4)).     

Minimal entropy and collapsing with curvature bounded from below

We show that if a closed manifold M admits an ℱ-structure (not necessarily polarized, possibly of rank zero) then its minimal entropy vanishes. In particular, this is the case if M admits a non-trivial S ¹-action. As a corollary we obtain that the simplicial volume of a manifold admitting an ℱ-structure is zero.?We also show that if M admits an ℱ-structure then it collapses with curvature bounded from below. This in turn implies that M collapses with bounded scalar curvature or, equivalently, its Yamabe invariant is non-negative.?We show that ℱ-structures of rank zero appear rather frequently: every compact complex elliptic surface admits one as well as any simply connected closed 5-manifold.?We use these results to study the minimal entropy problem. We show the following two theorems: suppose that M is a closed manifold obtained by taking connected sums of copies of S ⁴, ℂP ², ²,S ²×S ²and the K3 surface. Then M has zero minimal entropy. Moreover, M admits a smooth Riemannian metric with zero topological entropy if and only if M is diffeomorphic to S ⁴,ℂP ²,S ²×S ²,ℂP ²#  ² or ℂP ²# ℂP ². Finally, suppose that M is a closed simply connected 5-manifold. Then M has zero minimal entropy. Moreover, M admits a smooth Riemannian metric with zero topological entropy if and only if M is diffeomorphic to S ⁵,S ³×S ², then on trivial S ³-bundle over S ² or the Wu-manifold SU(3)/SO(3). Oblatum 13-III-2002 & 12-VIII-2002?Published online: 8 November 2002 G.P. Paternain was partially supported by CIMAT, Guanajuato, México.?J. Petean is supported by grant 37558-E of CONACYT.     

n-dimensional totally real minimal submanifolds of CP n

Let CP ⁿ be the n-dimensional complex projective space with the Study-Fubini metric of constant holomorphic sectional curvature 4 and let M be a compact, orientable, n-dimensional totally real minimal submanifold of CP ⁿ . In this paper we prove the following results.

Isoperimetric regions in spherical cones and Yamabe constants of M ×?S1

We study isoperimetric regions on Riemannian manifolds of the form (M ⁿ × (0, π), sin²(t)g + dt ²) where g is a metric of positive Ricci curvature ≥ n − 1. When g is an Einstein metric we use this to compute the Yamabe constant of (M ×\mathbbR, g+ dt² ){(M \times \mathbb{R}, g+ dt^2 )} and so to obtain lower bounds for the Yamabe invariant of M × S ¹.     

On the geometry of orthonormal frame bundles II

We study the geometry of orthonormal frame bundles OM over Riemannian manifolds (M, g). The former are equipped with some modifications of the Sasaki-Mok metric depending on one real parameter c ≠ 0. The metrics are “strongly invariant” in some special sense. In particular, we consider the case when (M, g) is a space of constant sectional curvature K. Then, for dim M > 2, we find always, among the metrics , two strongly invariant Einstein metrics on OM which are Riemannian for K > 0 and pseudo-Riemannian for K < 0. At least one of them is not locally symmetric. We also find, for dim M ≥ 2, two invariant metrics with vanishing scalar curvature.      

Classification of manifolds with weakly 1/4-pinched curvatures

We show that a compact Riemannian manifold with weakly pointwise 1/4-pinched sectional curvatures is either locally symmetric or diffeomorphic to a space form. More generally, we classify all compact, locally irreducible Riemannian manifolds M with the property that M × R ² has non-negative isotropic curvature. The first author was partially supported by a Sloan Foundation Fellowship and by NSF grant DMS-0605223. The second author was partially supported by NSF grant DMS-0604960.     

Finsler metrics with constant （or scalar） flag curvature

A Finsler metric on a manifold M with its flag curvature K is said to be almost isotropic flag curvature if K =3c + σ where σ and c are scalar functions on M.In this paper,we establish the intrinsic re...     

An elementary approach to gap theorems

Using elementary comparison geometry, we prove: Let (M, g) be a simply-connected complete Riemannian manifold of dimension ≥ 3. Suppose that the sectional curvature K satisfies −1 − s(r) ≤ K ≤ −1, where r denotes distance to a fixed point in M. If lim _{r → ∞} e^2r s(r) = 0, then (M, g) has to be isometric to ℍ ⁿ . The same proof also yields that if K satisfies −s(r) ≤ K ≤ 0 where lim _{r → ∞} r ² s(r) = 0, then (M, g) is isometric to ℝ ⁿ , a result due to Greene and Wu. Our second result is a local one: Let (M, g) be any Riemannian manifold. For a ∈ ℝ, if K ≤ a on a geodesic ball B _p (R) in M and K = a on ∂B _p (R), then K = a on B _p (R).     

Minimal helix surfaces in <Emphasis Type="Italic">N</Emphasis><Superscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">n</Emphasis></Superscript>×ℝ

An immersed surface M in N ⁿ ×ℝ is a helix if its tangent planes make constant angle with ∂ _t . We prove that a minimal helix surface M, of arbitrary codimension is flat. If the codimension is one, it is totally geodesic. If the sectional curvature of N is positive, a minimal helix surfaces in N ⁿ ×ℝ is not necessarily totally geodesic. When the sectional curvature of N is nonpositive, then M is totally geodesic. In particular, minimal helix surfaces in Euclidean n-space are planes. We also investigate the case when M has parallel mean curvature vector: A complete helix surface with parallel mean curvature vector in Euclidean n-space is a plane or a cylinder of revolution. Finally, we use Eikonal f functions to construct locally any helix surface. In particular every minimal one can be constructed taking f with zero Hessian.     

Characterizations of Some Product Manifolds by Their Spectrum

Let Sⁿ(c) denote the n-dimensional Euclidean sphere of constant sectional curvature c and denote by CPⁿ(c) the complex projective space of complex dimension n and of holomorphic sectional curvature c. In this paper, we obtain some characterizations of the manifolds S²(c) × S²(c′), S⁴(c) × S⁴(c′), CP²(c) × CP²(c′) by their spectrum.     

Characterizations of Some Product Manifolds by Their Spectrum

Let Sⁿ(c) denote the n-dimensional Euclidean sphere of constant sectional curvature c and denote by CPⁿ(c) the complex projective space of complex dimension n and of holomorphic sectional curvature c. In this paper, we obtain some characterizations of the manifolds S²(c) × S²(c′), S⁴(c) × S⁴(c′), CP²(c) × CP²(c′) by their spectrum.     

Schouten curvature functions on locally conformally flat Riemannian manifolds

Consider a compact Riemannian manifold (M, g) with metric g and dimension n ≥ 3. The Schouten tensor A _g associated with g is a symmetric (0, 2)-tensor field describing the non-conformally-invariant part of the curvature tensor of g. In this paper, we consider the elementary symmetric functions {σ _k (A _g ), 1 ≤ k ≤ n} of the eigenvalues of A _g with respect to g; we call σ _k (A _g ) the k-th Schouten curvature function. We give an isometric classification for compact locally conformally flat manifolds which satisfy the conditions: A _g is semi-positive definite and σ _k (A _g ) is a nonzero constant for some k ∈ {2, ... , n}. If k = 2, we obtain a classification result under the weaker conditions that σ₂(A _g ) is a non-negative constant and (M ⁿ , g) has nonnegative Ricci curvature. The corresponding result for the case k = 1 is well known. We also give an isometric classification for complete locally conformally flat manifolds with constant scalar curvature and non-negative Ricci curvature. Udo Simon: Partially supported by Chinese-German cooperation projects, DFG PI 158/4-4 and PI 158/4-5, and NSFC.     

Complete harmonic stable minimal hypersurfaces in a Riemannian manifold

In this paper, we will introduce the notion of harmonic stability for complete minimal hypersurfaces in a complete Riemannian manifold. The first result we prove, is that a complete harmonic stable minimal surface in a Riemannian manifold with non-negative Ricci curvature is conformally equivalent to either a plane R ² or a cylinder R × S ¹, which generalizes a theorem due to Fischer-Colbrie and Schoen [12]. The second one is that an n ≥ 2-dimensional, complete harmonic stable minimal, hypersurface M in a complete Riemannian manifold with non-negative sectional curvature has only one end if M is non-parabolic. The third one, which we prove, is that there exist no non-trivial L ²-harmonic one forms on a complete harmonic stable minimal hypersurface in a complete Riemannian manifold with non-negative sectional curvature. Since the harmonic stability is weaker than stability, we obtain a generalization of a theorem due to Miyaoka [20] and Palmer [21]. Research partially Supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan. The author’s research was supported by grant Proj. No. KRF-2007-313-C00058 from Korea Research Foundation, Korea. Authors’ addresses: Qing-Ming Cheng, Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Saga University, Saga 840-8502, Japan; Young Jin Suh, Department of Mathematics, Kyungpook National University, Taegu 702-701, South Korea     

Optimal pinching constants of odd dimensional homogeneous spaces

In this article we compute the pinching constants of all invariant Riemannian metrics on the Berger space B ¹³=SU(5)/(Sp(2)×_ℤ2S¹) and of all invariant U(2)-biinvariant Riemannian metrics on the Aloff–Wallach space W ⁷ _1,1=SU(3)/S¹ _1,1. We prove that the optimal pinching constants are precisely in both cases. So far B ¹³ and W ⁷ _1,1 were only known to admit Riemannian metrics with pinching constants .?We also investigate the optimal pinching constants for the invariant metrics on the other Aloff–Wallach spaces W ⁷ _k,l =SU(3)/S¹ _k,l . Our computations cover the cone of invariant T²-biinvariant Riemannian metrics. This cone contains all invariant Riemannian metrics unless k/l=1. It turns out that the optimal pinching constants are given by a strictly increasing function in k/l∈[0,1]. Thus all the optimal pinching constants are ≤.?In order to determine the extremal values of the sectional curvature of an invariant Riemannian metric on W ⁷ _k,l we employ a systematic technique, which can be applied to other spaces as well. The computation of the pinching constants for B ¹³ is reduced to the curvature computation for two proper totally geodesic submanifolds. One of them is diffeomorphic to ℂℙ³/ℤ₂ and inherits an Sp(2)-invariant Riemannian metric, and the other is W ⁷ _1,1 embedded as recently found by Taimanov. This approach explains in particular the coincidence of the optimal pinching constants for W ⁷ _1,1 and the Berger space B ¹³. Oblatum 9-XI-1998 & 3-VI-1999 / Published online: 20 August 1999