ICMS Workshop

Comparison geometry with Ricci Bounds -Professor Sormani

ICMS Summer school for Ricci curvature July 2013


Prerequisite material

Riemannian Manifolds, Geodesics and Exponential maps, Sectional Curvature,

Gradients and Laplacians (c.f. do Carmo’s “Riemannian Geometry” Chapters 1-7),

and the Maximum Principle.

Course materials

• Uwe Abresch and Detlef Gromoll “On Complete manifolds with nonnegative Ricci curvature" J.

Amer. Math. Soc. 3 (1990), 355-374. available free at http://tinyurl.com/l2vs4qg

• Dimitri Burago, Yuri Burago and Sergei Ivanov “A Course in Metric Geometry”

available at http://www.math.psu.edu/petrunin/papers/alexandrov/bbi.pdf

• Peter Li “Lecture Notes on Geometric Analysis”

was available at http://www.math.uci.edu/~pli/lecture.pdf (see Wei instead)

• Zhongmin Shen, Christina Sormani “The Topology of Open Manifolds of Nonnegative Ricci Curvature”

available on the arxiv at arxiv: 0606774

• Christina Sormani, “How Riemannian Manifolds Converge”

available on the arxiv as arxiv: 1006.041

• Guofang Wei, "Comparison Geometry for Ricci Curvature" August 2008 Lecture Notes

available on www.math.ucsb.edu/~wei/paper/08summer-lecture.pdf

Course outline

* Lesson 1: (Monday 11:30-12:30)

The Definition of Ricci Curvature [Li, Chapter 1]

The Bocher-Weitzenboch formula [Li, Chapter 3] [Wei 1.1]

Mean curvature Comparison Theorem [Wei 1.2]

The Bishop-Gromov Volume Comparison Theorem [Li, Chapter 2] [Wei 1.4]

* Lesson 2: (Monday 16:30-17:30)

Gromov-Hausdorff Convergence [So, Section 3] [BBI, Chapter 7.3]

Gromov's Compactness Theorem [So, Section 3] [BBI, Chapter 7.4]

* Lesson 3: (Tuesday 14:00-15:00)

The Laplace Comparison Theorem [Li, Chapter 4] [Wei 1.2-1.3]

The Cheeger-Gromoll Splitting Theorem [Li, Chapter 4]

The Abresch-Gromoll Excess Theorem [AbGr, Section 2]]

* Extra Tutorial: (Tuesday 17:30-18:30 in Cramond Room)

Convergence of Riemannian Manifolds [So, Section 4]

* Lesson 4: (Wednesday 12:00-13:00)

Milnor’s Conjecture on the Fundamental Group [ShSo, Section 3]

Course Notes and Problems (will be posted here)

Lesson I :

The Definition of Ricci Curvature [Li, Chapter 1]

The Bocher-Weitzenboch formula [Li, Chapter 3] [Wei 1.1]

Mean curvature Comparison Theorem [Wei 1.2]

The Bishop-Gromov Volume Comparison Theorem [Li, Chapter 2] [Wei 1.4]

Exercises:

1) Show Jacobi fields on a manifold with constant sectional have the form sn_H(r)e where e is parallel.

2) If B_{p_j}(r) are a maximal disjoint collection of balls in M then B_{p_j}(2r) cover M.

3) Prove Yau's Theorem that the volume growth of a complete manifold with nonnegative Ricci curvature is at least linear using the Bishop-Gromov Annulus Volume Comparison Theorem.

4) Find a uniform upper bound N(r,R) of the number of disjoint balls of radius r in a ball of radius R depending on a uniform lower bound on Ricci curvature.

5) Use Bishop's Theorem that the area ratio is nonincreasing to prove the Bishop Gromov Volume Comparison Theorem.

Lesson II:

Gromov-Hausdorff Convergence [So, Section 3] [BBI, Chapter 7.3]

Gromov's Compactness Theorem [So, Section 3] [BBI, Chapter 7.4]

Notes: photos of handwritten notes

Exercises:

1) Prove the extrinsic diameter of a set in a metric space is continuous wrt Hausdorff convergence of sets in that metric space.

2) Prove the Hausdorff distance is a semi metric on the space of all subsets of a metric space.

3) Prove that the Hausdorff distance between a set and its closure is 0.

4) Prove that the Hausdorff distance between closed sets in a metric space is 0 iff the sets are isometric.

5) Prove that if Y subset X subset T_r(X) then the Gromov Hausdorff distance between X and Y with the restricted metric from X is \le r.

6) Prove that if X and Y are bounded metric spaces the Gromov Hausdorff distance between them is finite.

7) Complete the proof the GH distance satisfies the triangle inequality.

8) Prove that the distortion of a relation is 0 iff the relation comes from an isometry.

9) Complete the proof that the GH distance between X and Y is 1/2 the infima of distortions of relations between X and Y.

10) Complete the proof estimating the GH distance using almost isometries.

11) Find a 2r almost isometry between metric spaces whose GH distance is < r.

Extra Gromov-Hausdorff Compactness Theorem Tutorial:

Photos of handwritten notes and exercises

Lesson III :

The Laplace Comparison Theorem [Li, Chapter 4] [Wei 1.2-1.3]

The Cheeger-Gromoll Splitting Theorem [Li, Chapter 4]

The Abresch-Gromoll Excess Theorem [AbGr, Section 2]

Notes and Exercises: Photos of handwritten notes including exercises

Lesson IV:

Milnor’s Conjecture on the Fundamental Group [ShSo, Section 3]

Notes and Open Problems: Photos of handwritten notes