On the topology of moduli spaces of non-negatively curved Riemannian metrics

We study spaces and moduli spaces of Riemannian metrics with non-negative Ricci or non-negative sectional curvature on closed and open manifolds. We construct, in particular, the first classes of manifolds for which these moduli spaces have non-trivial rational homotopy, homology and cohomology groups. We also show that in every dimension at least seven (respectively, at least eight) there exist infinite sequences of closed (respectively, open) manifolds of pairwise distinct homotopy type for which the space and moduli space of Riemannian metrics with non-negative sectional curvature has infinitely many path components. A completely analogous statement holds for spaces and moduli spaces of non-negative Ricci curvature metrics.

Null Kähler Geometry and Isomonodromic Deformations

We construct the normal forms of null-Kähler metrics: pseudo-Riemannian metrics admitting a compatible parallel nilpotent endomorphism of the tangent bundle. Such metrics are examples of non-Riemannian holonomy reduction, and (in the complexified setting) appear on the space of Bridgeland stability conditions on a Calabi–Yau threefold. Using twistor methods we show that, in dimension four—where there is a connection with dispersionless integrability—the cohomogeneity-one anti-self-dual null-Kähler metrics are generically characterised by solutions to Painlevé I or Painlevé II ODEs.

Asymptotic Structure with a positive cosmological constant

This is the second of two papers that study the asymptotic structure of space-times with a non-negative cosmological constant Λ. This paper deals with the case Λ>0. Our approach is founded on the `tidal energies' built with the Weyl curvature and, specifically, we use the asymptotic super-Poynting vector computed from the rescaled Bel-Robinson tensor at infinity to provide a covariant, gauge-invariant, criterion for the existence, or absence, of gravitational radiation at infinity. The fundamental idea we put forward is that the physical asymptotic properties are encoded in $(\scri,h_{ab},D_{ab})$, where the first element of the triplet is a 3-dimensional manifold, the second is a representative of a conformal class of Riemannian metrics on $\scri$, and the third element is a traceless symmetric tensor field on $\scri$. We similarly propose a no-incoming radiation criterion based also on the triplet $(\scri,h_{ab},D_{ab})$ and on radiant supermomenta deduced from the rescaled Bel-Robinson tensor too. We search for news tensors and argue that any news-like object must be associated to, and depends on, 2-dimensional cross-sections of $\scri$. We identify one component of news for every such cross-section and present a general strategy to find the second component. We also introduce the concept of equipped $\scri$, consider the limit Λ→0 and apply all our results to selected exact solutions of Einstein Field Equations. The full-length abstract is available in the paper.

A structure of the solenoidal 2D vector and 2-tensor fields given in a domain with the conformal Riemannian metric

The Helmholtz decomposition of a vector field on potential and solenoidal parts is much more natural from physical and geometric points of view then representations through the components of the vector in the Cartesian coordinate system of Euclidean space. The structure, representation through potentials and detailed decomposition for 2D symmetric m-tensor fields in a case of the Euclidean metric is known. For the Riemannian metrics similar results are known for vector fields. We investigate the properties of the solenoidal vector and 2-tensor two-dimensional fields given in the Riemannian domain with the conformal metric and establish the connections between the fields and metrics.

On the completeness of total spaces of horizontally conformal submersions

In this paper, we address the completeness problem of certain classes of Riemannian metrics on vector bundles. We first establish a general result on the completeness of the total space of a vector bundle when the projection is a horizontally conformal submersion with a bound condition on the dilation function, and in particular when it is a Riemannian submersion. This allows us to give completeness results for spherically symmetric metrics on vector bundle manifolds and eventually for the class of Cheeger-Gromoll and generalized Cheeger-Gromoll metrics on vector bundle manifolds. Moreover, we study the completeness of a subclass of g-natural metrics on tangent bundles and we extend the results to the case of unit tangent sphere bundles. Our proofs are mainly based on techniques of metric topology and on the Hopf-Rinow theorem.

Some aspects of Ricci flow on the 4-sphere

In this paper, on 4-spheres equipped with Riemannian metrics we study some integral conformal invariants, the sign and size of which under Ricci flow characterize the standard 4-sphere. We obtain a conformal gap theorem, and for Yamabe metrics of positive scalar curvature with L^2 norm of the Weyl tensor of the metric suitably small, we establish the monotonic decay of the L^p norm for certain p>2 of the reduced curvature tensor along the normalized Ricci flow, with the metric converging exponentially to the standard 4-sphere.

Radial kinetic nonholonomic trajectories are Riemannian geodesics!

Nonholonomic mechanics describes the motion of systems constrained by nonintegrable constraints. One of its most remarkable properties is that the derivation of the nonholonomic equations is not variational in nature. However, in this paper, we prove (Theorem 1.1) that for kinetic nonholonomic systems, the solutions starting from a fixed point q are true geodesics for a family of Riemannian metrics on the image submanifold $${{\mathcal {M}}}^{nh}_q$$ M q nh of the nonholonomic exponential map. This implies a surprising result: the kinetic nonholonomic trajectories with starting point q, for sufficiently small times, minimize length in $${{\mathcal {M}}}^{nh}_q$$ M q nh !

Scalar curvature on some open 3-manifolds

This article is a survey of recent results about the existence of Riemannian metrics of positive scalar curvature on some open 3-manifolds. This results culminate in a rigidity theorem obtained using the theory of stable minimal surfaces.