Manifolds of almost nonnegative curvature
Margulis Lemma, entropy and free products
We prove a Margulis’ Lemma à la Besson-Courtois-Gallot, for manifolds whose fundamental group is a nontrivial free product , without 2-torsion. Moreover, if is torsion-free we give a lower bound for the homotopy systole in terms of upper bounds on the diameter and the volume-entropy. We also provide examples and counterexamples showing the optimality of our assumption. Finally we give two applications of this result: a finiteness theorem and a volume estimate for reducible manifolds.
Metric constraints on exotic spheres via Alexandrov geometry.
Metric Perspectives of the Ricci Flow Applied to Disjoint Unions
In this paper we consider compact, Riemannian manifolds M1, M2 each equipped with a oneparameter family of metrics g1(t), g2(t) satisfying the Ricci flow equation. Adopting the characterization of super-solutions to the Ricci flow developed by McCann-Topping, we define a super Ricci flow for a family of distance metrics defined on the disjoint union M1 ⊔ M2. In particular, we show such a super Ricci flow property holds provided the distance function between points in M1 and M2 is itself a super...