No Arabic abstract
The $pi_2$-diffeomorphism finiteness result (cite{FR1,2}, cite{PT}) asserts that the diffeomorphic types of compact $n$-manifolds $M$ with vanishing first and second homotopy groups can be bounded above in terms of $n$, and upper bounds on the absolute value of sectional curvature and diameter of $M$. In this paper, we will generalize this $pi_2$-diffeomorphism finiteness by removing the condition that $pi_1(M)=0$ and asserting the diffeomorphism finiteness on the Riemannian universal cover of $M$.
Let a compact Lie group act isometrically on a non-collapsing sequence of compact Alexandrov spaces with fixed dimension and uniform lower curvature and upper diameter bounds. If the sequence of actions is equicontinuous and converges in the equivariant Gromov--Hausdorff topology, then the limit space is equivariantly homeomorphic to spaces in the tail of the sequence. As a consequence, the class of Riemannian orbifolds of dimension $n$ defined by a lower bound on the sectional curvature and the volume and an upper bound on the diameter has only finitely many members up to orbifold homeomorphism. Furthermore, any class of isospectral Riemannian orbifolds with a lower bound on the sectional curvature is finite up to orbifold homeomorphism.
We prove a Bonnet-Myers type theorem for quaternionic contact manifolds of dimension bigger than 7. If the manifold is complete with respect to the natural sub-Riemannian distance and satisfies a natural Ricci-type bound expressed in terms of derivatives up to the third order of the fundamental tensors, then the manifold is compact and we give a sharp bound on its sub-Riemannian diameter.
We prove the Singer conjecture for extended graph manifolds and pure complex-hyperbolic higher graph manifolds with residually finite fundamental groups. In real dimension three, where a result of Hempel ensures that the fundamental group is always residually finite, we then provide a Price type inequality proof of a well-known result of Lott and Lueck. Finally, we give several classes of higher graph manifolds which do indeed have residually finite fundamental groups.
We prove the generalized Margulis lemma with a uniform index bound on an Alexandrov $n$-space $X$ with curvature bounded below, i.e., small loops at $pin X$ generate a subgroup of the fundamental group of unit ball $B_1(p)$ that contains a nilpotent subgroup of index $le w(n)$, where $w(n)$ is a constant depending only on the dimension $n$. The proof is based on the main ideas of V.~Kapovitch, A.~Petrunin, and W.~Tuschmann, and the following results: (1) We prove that any regular almost Lipschitz submersion constructed by Yamaguchi on a collapsed Alexandrov space with curvature bounded below is a Hurewicz fibration. We also prove that such fibration is uniquely determined up to a homotopy equivalence. (2) We give a detailed proof on the gradient push, improving the universal pushing time bound given by V.~Kapovitch, A.~Petrunin, and W.~Tuschmann, and justifying in a specific way that the gradient push between regular points can always keep away from extremal subsets.
We study the space of generalized translation invariant valuations on a finite-dimensional vector space and construct a partial convolution which extends the convolution of smooth translation invariant valuations. Our main theorem is that McMullens polytope algebra is a subalgebra of the (partial) convolution algebra of generalized translation invariant valuations. More precisely, we show that the polytope algebra embeds injectively into the space of generalized translation invariant valuations and that for polytopes in general position, the convolution is defined and corresponds to the product in the polytope algebra.