Maximal first Betti number drop and collapsing RCD spaces
Let $(X_i,d_i,\mathfrak m_i)$ be compact $\mathrm{RCD}(K,N)$ spaces converging to a space $X$ of rectifiable dimension $m$. Their first Betti numbers can drop by at most $N-m$. When equality holds, the maximal abelian covers have a non-collapsed limit $Y$ carrying a free isometric $\mathbb{R}^{N-m}$-action. We turn this limiting symmetry into fibrations of the approximating spaces. More precisely, after passing to a subsequence, there is an open full-measure set $G\subset X$, containing every regular point, on which $X$ is a topological orbifold and the $X_i$ admit local Seifert fibrations with $(N-m)$-torus fibres. Each finite local group acts on the fibre by translations. If the $X_i$ have no boundary, then $X\setminus G$ has Hausdorff codimension at least two. If $Y$ has no bubbling and $X$ is a smooth closed Riemannian orbifold, the local fibrations may be chosen as restrictions of a single global Seifert fibration. An affine replacement on the smooth manifold cover shows, in addition, that a finite cover of $X_i$ is homeomorphic to a product with $\mathbb{T}^{N-m}$; here we use the classification of affine torus bundles at the Betti number equality of Peng, Wang and Wang. When the base is a closed Riemannian manifold, the maps are torus bundles, confirming a conjecture of Zamora and Zhu for possibly singular RCD total spaces. The new ingredients are a pointwise linearization of the collapsing action at regular orbits, an invariant harmonic transverse coordinate compatible with finite isotropy, and an exactly equivariant orbit coordinate built from an elementary rounding-and-doubling argument in the collapsing deck group.