Volume growth and the topology of manifolds with nonnegative Ricci curvature

Let $M^n$ be a complete, open Riemannian manifold with $Ric geq 0$. In 1994, Grigori Perelman showed that there exists a constant $delta_{n}>0$, depending only on the dimension of the manifold, such that if the volume growth satisfies $alpha_M := lim_{r to infty} frac{Vol(B_p(r))}{omega_n r^n} geq 1-delta_{n}$, then $M^n$ is contractible. Here we employ the techniques of Perelman to find specific lower bounds for the volume growth, $alpha(k,n)$, depending only on $k$ and $n$, which guarantee the individual $k$-homotopy group of $M^n$ is trivial.