arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Aaron Naber.
Fukaya and Yamaguchi conjectured that if $M^n$ is a manifold with nonnegative sectional curvature, then the fundamental group is uniformly virtually abelian. In this short note we observe that the conjecture holds in dimensions up to four.
It follows from the work of Kapovitch and Wilking that a closed manifold with nonnegative Ricci curvature has an almost nilpotent fundamental group. Leftover questions and conjectures have asked if in this context the fundamental group is actually uniformly almost abelian. The main goal of this work is to construct examples $(M^{9}_k, g_k)$ with uniformly positive Ricci curvature ${\rm Ric}_{g_k}\geq 8$ whose fundamental groups cannot be uniformly virtually abelian.
The Reifenberg theorem \cite{reif_orig} tells us that if a set $S\subseteq B_2\subseteq \mathbb R^n$ is uniformly close on all points and scales to a $k$-dimensional subspace, then $S$ is H\"older homeomorphic to a $k$-dimensional Euclidean ball. In general this is sharp, for instance such an $S$ may have infinite volume, be fractal in nature, and have no rectifiable structure. The goal of this note is to show that we can improve upon this for an almost calibrated Reifenberg set, or more generally under a positivity condition in the context of an $\epsilon$-calibration $\Omega$ . An $\epsilon$-calibration is very general, the condition holds locally for all continuous $k$-forms such that $\Omega[L]\leq 1+\epsilon$ for all $k$-planes $L$. We say an oriented $k$-plane $L$ is $\alpha$-positive with respect to $\Omega$ if $\Omega[L]>\alpha>0$. If $\Omega[L]>\alpha> 1-\epsilon$ then we call $L$ an $\epsilon$-calibrated plane. The main result of this paper is then the following. Assume at all points and scales $B_r(x)\subseteq B_2$ that $S$ is $\delta$-Hausdorff close to a subspace $L_{x,r}$ which is uniformly positive $\Omega[L_{x,r}]>\alpha $ with respect to an $\epsilon$-calibration. Then $S$ is $k$-rectifiable with uniform volume bounds.
In this paper we consider sequences $u_j:B_2\subseteq M\to N$ of stationary harmonic maps between smooth Riemannian manifolds with uniformly bounded energy $E[u_j]\equiv \int |\nabla u_j|^2\leq \Lambda$ . After passing to a subsequence it is known one can limit $u_j\to u:B_1\to N$ with the associated defect measure $|\nabla u_j|^2 dv_g \to |\nabla u|^2dv_g+\nu$, where $\nu = e(x)\, H^{m-2}_S$ is an $m-2$ rectifiable measure \cite{lin_stat}. For a.e. $x\in S=\operatorname{supp}(\nu)$ one can produce a finite number of bubble maps $b_j:S^2\to N$ by blowing up the sequence $u_j$ near $x$. We prove the energy identity in this paper. Namely, we have at a.e. $x\in S$ that $e(x)=\sum_j E[b_j]$ for a complete set of such bubbles. That is, the energy density of the defect measure $\nu$ is precisely the sum of the energies of the bubbling maps.
We extend our previous work by building a smooth complete manifold $(M^6,g,p)$ with $\mathrm{Ric}\geq 0$ and whose fundamental group $\pi_1(M^6)=\mathbb{Q}/\mathbb{Z}$ is infinitely generated. The example is built with a variety of interesting geometric properties. To begin the universal cover $\tilde M^6$ is diffeomorphic to $S^3\times \mathbb{R}^3$, which turns out to be rather subtle as this diffeomorphism is increasingly twisting at infinity. The curvature of $M^6$ is uniformly bounded, and in fact decaying polynomially. The example is {\it locally} noncollapsed, in that $\mathrm{Vol}(B_1(x))>v>0$ for all $x\in M$. Finally, the space is built so that it is {\it almost } globally noncollapsed. Precisely, for every $\eta>0$ there exists radii $r_j\to \infty$ such that $\mathrm{Vol}(B_{r_j}(p))\geq r_j^{6-\eta}$. The broad outline for the construction of the example will closely follow the scheme introduced in our previous work. The six-dimensional case requires a couple of new points, in particular the corresponding Ricci curvature control on the equivariant mapping class group is harder and cannot be done in the same manner.
It is known that a limit $(M^n_j,g_j)\to (X^k,d)$ of manifolds $M_j$ with uniform lower bounds on Ricci curvature must be $k$-rectifiable for some unique $\dim X:= k\leq n = \dim M_j$. It is also known that if $k=n$, then $X^n$ is a topological manifold on an open dense subset, and it has been an open question as to whether this holds for $k \lambda$ and $\lambda\in \mathbb{R}$. Then for each $\epsilon>0$ we construct a complete $4$-rectifiable metric space $(X^4_\epsilon,d_\epsilon)$ with $d_{GH}(X^4_\epsilon,X^4)<\epsilon$ such that the following hold. First, $X^4_\epsilon$ is a limit space $(M^6_j,g_j)\to X^4_\epsilon$ where $M^6_j$ are smooth manifolds with $\text{Ric}_j>\lambda$ satisfying the same lower Ricci bound. Additionally, $X^4_\epsilon$ has no open subset which is topologically a manifold. Indeed, for any open $U\subseteq X^4_\epsilon$ we have that the second homology $H_2(U)$ is infinitely generated. Topologically, $X^4_\epsilon$ is the connect sum of $X^4$ with an infinite number of densely spaced copies of $\mathbb{C} P^2$ . In this way we see that every $4$-manifold $X^4$ may be approximated arbitrarily closely by $4$-dimensional limit spaces $X^4_\epsilon$ which are nowhere manifolds. We will see there is an, as now imprecise, sense in which generically one should expect manifold structures to not exist on spaces with higher dimensional Ricci curvature lower bounds.
Let $(M^n_i, g_i)\to (X,d_X)$ be a Gromov-Hausdorff converging sequence of Riemannian manifolds with ${\rm Sec}_{g_i} \ge -1$, ${\rm diam}\, (M_i)\le D$, and such that the $M^n_i$ are all homeomorphic to tori $T^n$. Then $X$ is homeomorphic to a $k$-dimensional torus $T^k$ for some $0\leq k\leq n$. This answers a question of Petrunin in the affirmative. We show this result is false is the $M^n_i$ are homeomorphic tori which are only assumed to be Alexandrov spaces. When $n=3$, we prove the same tori stability under the weaker condition ${\rm Ric}_{g_i} \ge -2$.
It was conjectured by Milnor in 1968 that the fundamental group of a complete manifold with nonnegative Ricci curvature is finitely generated. The main result of this paper is a counterexample, which provides an example $M^7$ with ${\rm Ric}\geq 0$ such that $\pi_1(M)=\mathbb{Q}/\mathbb{Z}$ is infinitely generated. There are several new points behind the result. The first is a new topological construction for building manifolds with infinitely generated fundamental groups, which can be interpreted as a smooth version of the fractal snowflake. The ability to build such a fractal structure will rely on a very twisted gluing mechanism. Thus the other new point is a careful analysis of the mapping class group $\pi_0\text{Diff}(S^3\times S^3)$ and its relationship to Ricci curvature. In particular, a key point will be to show that the action of $\pi_0\text{Diff}(S^3\times S^3)$ on the standard metric $g_{S^3\times S^3}$ lives in a path connected component of the space of metrics with ${\rm Ric}>0$.
We establish codimension 4 regularity of noncollapsed sequences of metrics with bounds on natural generalizations of the Ricci tensor. We obtain a priori L2 curvature estimates on such spaces, with diffeomorphism finiteness results and rigidity theorems as corollaries.
This paper studies the structure and stability of boundaries in noncollapsed $\text{RCD}(K,N)$ spaces, that is, metric-measure spaces $(X,\mathsf{d},\mathscr{H}^N)$ with lower Ricci curvature bounded below. Our main structural result is that the boundary $\partial X$ is homeomorphic to a manifold away from a set of codimension 2, and is $N-1$ rectifiable. Along the way we show effective measure bounds on the boundary and its tubular neighborhoods. These results are new even for Gromov-Hausdorff limits $(M_i^N,\mathsf{d}_{g_i},p_i) \rightarrow (X,\mathsf{d},p)$ of smooth manifolds with boundary, and require new techniques beyond those needed to prove the analogous statements for the regular set, in particular when it comes to the manifold structure of the boundary $\partial X$. The key local result is an $ε$-regularity theorem, which tells us that if a ball $B_{2}(p)\subset X$ is sufficiently close to a half space $B_{2}(0)\subset \mathbb{R}^N_+$ in the Gromov-Hausdorff sense, then $B_1(p)$ is biHölder to an open set of $\mathbb{R}^N_+$. In particular, $\partial X$ is itself homeomorphic to $B_1(0^{N-1})$ near $B_1(p)$. Further, the boundary $\partial X$ is $N-1$ rectifiable and the boundary measure $\mathscr{H}^{N-1}_{\partial X}$ is Ahlfors regular on $B_1(p)$ with volume close to the Euclidean volume. Our second collection of results involve the stability of the boundary with respect to noncollapsed mGH convergence $X_i\to X$. Specifically, we show a boundary volume convergence which tells us that the $N-1$ Hausdorff measures on the boundaries converge $\mathscr{H}^{N-1}_{\partial X_i}\to \mathscr{H}^{N-1}_{\partial X}$ to the limit Hausdorff measure on $\partial X$. We will see that a consequence of this is that if the $X_i$ are boundary free then so is $X$.
Consider a sequence of Riemannian manifolds $(M^n_i,g_i)$ with scalar curvatures and entropies bounded below by small constants $R_i,\mu_i \geq-\epsilon_i$. The goal of this paper is to understand notions of convergence and the structure of limits for such spaces. Even in the seemingly rigid case $\epsilon_i\to 0$, we construct examples showing that such a sequence may converge wildly in the Gromov-Hausdorff or Intrinsic Flat sense. On the other hand, we will see that these classical notions of convergence are the incorrect ones to consider. Indeed, even a metric space is the wrong underlying category to be working on. Instead, we introduce $d_p$ convergence, a weaker notion of convergence that is valid for a class of rectifiable Riemannian spaces. These rectifiable spaces have well-behaved topology, measure theory, and analysis, though potentially there will be no reasonably associated distance function. Under the $d_p$ notion of closeness, a space with almost nonnegative scalar curvature and small entropy bounds must in fact be close to Euclidean space; this will constitute our $\epsilon$-regularity theorem. More generally, we have a compactness theorem saying that sequences of Riemannian manifolds $(M^n_i,g_i)$ with small lower scalar curvature and entropy bounds $R_i,\mu_i \geq -\epsilon$ must $d_p$ converge to such a rectifiable Riemannian space $X$. Comparing to the first paragraph, the distance functions of $M_i$ may be degenerating, even though in a well-defined sense the analysis cannot be. Applications for manifolds with small scalar and entropy lower bounds include an $L^\infty$-Sobolev embedding and apriori $L^p$ scalar curvature bounds for $p<1$.
Consider a Riemannian manifold with bounded Ricci curvature $|\Ric|\leq n-1$ and the noncollapsing lower volume bound $\Vol(B_1(p))>\rv>0$. The first main result of this paper is to prove that we have the $L^2$ curvature bound $\fint_{B_1(p)}|\Rm|^2 < C(n,\rv)$, which proves the $L^2$ conjecture. In order to prove this, we will need to first show the following structural result for limits. Namely, if $(M^n_j,d_j,p_j) \longrightarrow (X,d,p)$ is a $GH$-limit of noncollapsed manifolds with bounded Ricci curvature, then the singular set $\cS(X)$ is $n-4$ rectifiable with the uniform Hausdorff measure estimates $H^{n-4}\big(\cS(X)\cap B_1\big)<C(n,\rv)$, which in particular proves the $n-4$-finiteness conjecture of Cheeger-Colding. We will see as a consequence of the proof that for $n-4$ a.e. $x\in \cS(X)$ that the tangent cone of $X$ at $x$ is unique and isometric to $\dR^{n-4}\times C(S^3/Γ_x)$ for some $Γ_x\subseteq O(4)$ which acts freely away from the origin.
In this short note we review some known results on the structure and regularity of spaces with lower Ricci curvature bounds. We present some known and new open questions about next steps.
Recall that if $(M^n,g)$ satisfies $\mathrm{Ric}\geq 0$, then the Li-Yau Differential Harnack Inequality tells us for each nonnegative $f:M\to \mathbb{R}^+$, with $f_t$ its heat flow, that $\frac{Δf_t}{f_t}-\frac{|\nabla f_t|^2}{f_t^2} +\frac{n}{2t}\geq 0.$ Our main result will be to generalize this to path space $P_xM$ of the manifold. A key point is that instead of considering infinite dimensional gradients and Laplacians on $P_xM$ we will consider a family of finite dimensional gradients and Laplace operators. Namely, for each $H^1_0$-function $φ:\mathbb{R}^+\to \mathbb{R}$ we will define the $φ$-gradient $\nabla_φF: P_xM\to T_xM$ and the $φ$-Laplacian $Δ_φF =\text{tr}_φ\mathrm{Hess} F:P_xM\to \mathbb{R}$, where $\mathrm{Hess} F$ is the Markovian Hessian and both the gradient and the $φ$-trace are induced by $n$ vector fields naturally associated to $φ$ under stochastic parallel translation. Now let $(M^n,g)$ satisfy $\mathrm{Ric}=0$, then for each nonnegative $F:P_xM\to \mathbb{R}^+$ we will show the inequality $$\frac{E_x [Δ_φF]}{E_x [F]}-\frac{E_x [\nabla_φF]^2}{E_x [F]^2} +\frac{n}{2}|| φ||^2\geq 0$$ for each $φ$, where $E_x$ denotes the expectation with respect to the Wiener measure on $P_xM$. By applying this to the simplest functions on path space, namely cylinder functions of one variable $F(γ) \equiv f(γ(t))$, we will see we recover the classical Li-Yau Harnack inequality exactly. We have similar estimates for Einstein manifolds, with errors depending only on the Einstein constant, as well as for general manifolds, with errors depending on the curvature. Finally, we derive generalizations of Hamilton's Matrix Harnack inequality on path space $P_xM$. It is our understanding that these estimates are new even on the path space of $\mathbb{R}^n$.
Let $X\in\text{Alex}\,^n(-1)$ be an $n$-dimensional Alexandrov space with curvature $\ge -1$. Let the $r$-scale $(k,ε)$-singular set $\mathcal S^k_{ε,\,r}(X)$ be the collection of $x\in X$ so that $B_r(x)$ is not $εr$-close to a ball in any splitting space $\mathbb R^{k+1}\times Z$. We show that there exists $C(n,ε)>0$ and $β(n,ε)>0$, independent of the volume, so that for any disjoint collection $\big\{B_{r_i}(x_i):x_i\in \mathcal S_{ε,\,βr_i}^k(X)\cap B_1, \,r_i\le 1\big\}$, the packing estimate $\sum r_i^k\le C$ holds. Consequently, we obtain the Hausdorff measure estimates $\mathcal H^k(\mathcal S^k_ε(X)\cap B_1)\le C$ and $\mathcal H^n\big(B_r (\mathcal S^k_{ε,\,r}(X))\cap B_1(p)\big)\leq C\,r^{n-k}$. This answers an open question asked by Kapovitch and Lytchak. We also show that the $k$-singular set $\mathcal S^k(X)=\underset{ε>0}\cup\left(\underset{r>0}\cap\mathcal S^k_{ε,\,r}\right)$ is $k$-rectifiable and construct examples to show that such a structure is sharp. For instance, in the $k=1$ case we can build for any closed set $T\subseteq \mathbb S^1$ and $ε>0$ a space $Y\in\text{Alex}^3(0)$ with $\mathcal S^{1}_ε(Y)=ϕ(T)$, where $ϕ\colon\mathbb S^1\to Y$ is a bi-Lipschitz embedding. Taking $T$ to be a Cantor set it gives rise to an example where the singular set is a $1$-rectifiable, $1$-Cantor set with positive $1$-Hausdorff measure.
These series of notes serve as an introduction to some of both the classical and modern techniques in Reifenberg theory. At its heart, Reifenberg theory is about studying general sets or measures which can be, in one sense or another, approximated on all scales by well behaved spaces, typically just Euclidean space itself. Such sets and measures turn out not to be arbitrary, and often times come with special structure inherited from what they are being approximated by. We will begin by recalling and proving the standard Reifenberg theorem, which says that sets in Euclidean space which are well approximated by affine subspaces on all scales must be homoemorphic to balls. These types of results have applications to studying the regular parts of solutions of nonlinear equations. The proof given is designed to move cleanly over to more complicated scenarios introduced later. The rest of the lecture notes are designed to introduce and prove the Rectifiable Reifenberg Theorem, including an introduction to the relevant concepts. The Rectifiable Reifenberg Theorem roughly says that if a measure $μ$ is summably close on all scales to affine subspaces $L^k$, then $μ=μ^++μ^k$ may be broken into pieces such that $μ^k$ is $k$-rectifiable with uniform Hausdorff measure estimates, and $μ^+$ has uniform bounds on its mass. These types of results have applications to studying the singular parts of solutions of nonlinear equations. The proof given is designed to give a baby introduction to ways of thinking in more modern PDE analysis, including an introduction to Neck regions and their Structure Theory.
The aim of this article is to study effective Reifenberg theorems for measures in a Hilbert or Banach space. For Hilbert spaces, we see all the results from $\mathbb{R}^n$ continue to hold with no additional restrictions. For a general Banach spaces we will see that the classical Reifenberg theorem holds, and that a weak version of the effective Reifenberg theorem holds in that if one assumes a summability estimate $\int_0^2 β^k(x,r)^1 \frac{dr}{r} 1$ any power gain at all may fail, even for uniformly smooth Banach spaces.
This paper is concerned with the structure of Gromov-Hausdorff limit spaces $(M^n_i,g_i,p_i)\stackrel{d_{GH}}{\longrightarrow} (X^n,d,p)$ of Riemannian manifolds satisfying a uniform lower Ricci curvature bound $Rc_{M^n_i}\geq -(n-1)$ as well as the noncollapsing assumption $Vol(B_1(p_i))>v>0$. In such cases, there is a filtration of the singular set, $S_0\subset S_1\cdots S_{n-1}:= S$, where $S^k:= \{x\in X:\text{ no tangent cone at $x$ is }(k+1)\text{-symmetric}\}$; equivalently no tangent cone splits off a Euclidean factor $\mathbb{R}^{k+1}$ isometrically. Moreover, by \cite{ChCoI}, $\dim S^k\leq k$. However, little else has been understood about the structure of the singular set $S$. Our first result for such limit spaces $X^n$ states that $S^k$ is $k$-rectifiable. In fact, we will show that for $k$-a.e. $x\in S^k$, {\it every} tangent cone $X_x$ at $x$ is $k$-symmetric i.e. that $X_x= \mathbb{R}^k\times C(Y)$ where $C(Y)$ might depend on the particular $X_x$. We use this to show that there exists $ε=ε(n,v)$, and a $(n-2)$-rectifible set $S^{n-2}_ε$, with finite $(n-2)$-dimensional Hausdorff measure $H^{n-2}(S_ε^{n-2})<C(n,v)$, such that $X^n\setminus S^{n-2}_ε$ is bi-Hölder equivalent to a smooth riemannian manifold. This improves the regularity results of \cite{ChCoI}. Additionally, we will see that tangent cones are unique of a subset of Hausdorff $(n-2)$ dimensional measure zero. Our analysis is based on several new ideas, including a sharp cone-splitting theorem and a geometric transformation theorem, which will allow us to control the degeneration of harmonic functions on these neck regions.