Scalar Curvature and Intrinsic Flat Convergence

Herein we present open problems and survey examples and theorems concerning sequences of Riemannian manifolds with uniform lower bounds on scalar curvature and their limit spaces. Examples of Gromov and of Ilmanen which naturally ought to have certain limit spaces do not converge with respect to smooth or Gromov-Hausdorff convergence. Thus we focus here on the notion of Intrinsic Flat convergence, developed jointly with Wenger. This notion has been applied successfully to study sequences that arise in General Relativity. Gromov has suggested it should be applied in other settings as well. We first review intrinsic flat convergence, its properties, and its compactness theorems, before presenting the applications and the open problems.Comment: 53 pages, 4 figures, Geometric Analysis on Riemannian and singular metric spaces, Lake Como School of Advnaced Studies, 11-15 July 2016, v2: minor fixes as requested by referee, to appear as a chapter in the deGruyter book series on PDE and Measure Theory edited by Gigl

Nonnegative Ricci curvature, small linear diameter growth and finite generation of fundamental groups

In 1968, Milnor conjectured that a complete noncompact manifold with nonnegative Ricci curvature has a finitely generated fundamental group. The author applies the Excess Theorem of Abresch and Gromoll (1990), to prove two theorems. The first states that if such a manifold has small linear diameter growth then its fundamental group is finitely generated. The second states that if such a manifold has an infinitely generated fundamental group then it has a tangent cone at infinity which is not polar. A corollary of either theorem is the fact that if such a manifold has linear volume growth, then its fundamental group is finitely generated.Comment: 12 pages, figures available from author [email protected]

Friedmann Cosmology and Almost Isotropy

In the Friedmann Model of the universe, cosmologists assume that spacelike slices of the universe are Riemannian manifolds of constant sectional curvature. This assumption is justified via Schur's Theorem by stating that the spacelike universe is locally isotropic. Here we define a Riemannian manifold as almost locally isotropic in a sense which allows both weak gravitational lensing in all directions and strong gravitational lensing in localized angular regions at most points. We then prove that such a manifold is Gromov Hausdorff close to a length space $Y$ which is a collection of space forms joined at discrete points. Within the paper we define a concept we call an "exponential length space" and prove that if such a space is locally isotropic then it is a space form.Comment: 45 pages, 7 figures (eps), AIM Workshop on General Relativity 2002, added some details to the explanation, fixed typos/gramma

How Riemannian Manifolds Converge: A Survey

This is an intuitive survey of extrinsic and intrinsic notions of convergence of manifolds complete with pictures of key examples and a discussion of the properties associated with each notion. We begin with a description of three extrinsic notions which have been applied to study sequences of submanifolds in Euclidean space: Hausdorff convergence of sets, flat convergence of integral currents, and weak convergence of varifolds. We next describe a variety of intrinsic notions of convergence which have been applied to study sequences of compact Riemannian manifolds: Gromov-Hausdorff convergence of metric spaces, convergence of metric measure spaces, Instrinsic Flat convergence of integral current spaces, and ultralimits of metric spaces. We close with a speculative section addressing possible notions of intrinsic varifold convergence, convergence of Lorentzian manifolds and area convergence.Comment: Solicited survey article for a volume of articles in honor of Cheeger's 65th Birthday. Version 2 adds additional references concerning convergence of Lorentzian manifolds and updates citation

The Almost Rigidity of Manifolds with Lower Bounds on Ricci Curvature and Minimal Volume Growth

We consider complete noncompact Riemannian manifolds with quadratically decaying lower Ricci curvature bounds and minimal volume growth. We first prove a rigidity result showing that ends with strongly minimal volume growth are isometric to warped product manifolds. Next we consider the almost rigid case in which manifolds with nonnegative and quadratically decaying lower Ricci curvature bounds have minimal volume growth. Compact regions in such manifolds are shown to be asymptotically close to warped products in the Gromov-Hausdorff topology. Manifolds with nonnegative Ricci curvature and linear volume growth are shown to have regions which are asymptotically close to being isometric products. The proofs involve a careful analysis of the Busemann functions on these manifolds using the recently developed Cheeger-Colding Almost Rigidity Theory. In addition, we show that the diameters of the level sets of Busemann functions in such manifolds grow sublinearly.Comment: To appear in: Communications in Analysis and Geometry, 54pp. (submission date to CAG: Dec 1997

Oberwolfach Report: Spacetime Intrinsic Flat Convergence

This Oberwolfach report describes published work with Carlos Vega introducing the null distance on a spacetime, and announces unpublished applications of this work jointly with Carlos Vega and with Anna Sakovich applying the null distance to define a spacetime intrinsic flat convergence (SF convergence). The announced work with Vega concerns convergence of sequences of big bang spacetimes and the announced work with Anna Sakovich concerns convergence of future maximal developments of initial data sets. Both were originally announced at the 2018 JMM. This report lists some open questions that will be discussed at the Oberwolfach meeting this coming August.Comment: 3 page

The Tetrahedral Property and a new Gromov-Hausdorff Compactness Theorem

We present the Tetrahedral Compactness Theorem which states that sequences of Riemannian manifolds with a uniform upper bound on volume and diameter that satisfy a uniform tetrahedral property have a subsequence which converges in the Gromov-Hausdorff sense to a countably $\mathcal{H}^m$ rectifiable metric space of the same dimension. The tetrahedral property depends only on distances between points in spheres, yet we show it provides a lower bound on the volumes of balls. The proof is based upon intrinsic flat convergence and a new notion called the sliced filling volume of a ball.Comment: This is an announcement with 1 figur

Universal Covers for Hausdorff Limits of Noncompact Spaces

We prove that if $Y$ is the Gromov-Hausdorff limit of a sequence of complete manifolds, $M^n_i$, with a uniform lower bound on Ricci curvature then $Y$ has a universal cover.Comment: 34 page

Hausdorff Convergence and Universal Covers

We prove that if $Y$ is the Gromov-Hausdorff limit of a sequence of compact manifolds, $M^n_i$, with a uniform lower bound on Ricci curvature and a uniform upper bound on diameter, then $Y$ has a universal cover. We then show that, for $i$ sufficiently large, the fundamental group of $M_i$ has a surjective homeomorphism onto the group of deck transforms of $Y$. Finally, in the non-collapsed case where the $M_i$ have an additional uniform lower bound on volume, we prove that the kernels of these surjective maps are finite with a uniform bound on their cardinality. A number of theorems are also proven concerning the limits of covering spaces and their deck transforms when the $M_i$ are only assumed to be compact length spaces with a uniform upper bound on diameter.Comment: 17 Page

Null distance on a spacetime

Given a time function $\tau$ on a spacetime $M$, we define a `null distance function', $\hat{d}_\tau$, built from and closely related to the causal structure of $M$. In basic models with timelike $\nabla \tau$, we show that 1) $\hat{d}_\tau$ is a definite distance function, which induces the manifold topology, 2) the causal structure of $M$ is completely encoded in $\hat{d}_\tau$ and $\tau$. In general, $\hat{d}_\tau$ is a conformally invariant pseudometric, which may be indefinite. We give an `anti-Lipschitz' condition on $\tau$, which ensures that $\hat{d}_\tau$ is definite, and show this condition to be satisfied whenever $\tau$ has gradient vectors $\nabla \tau$ almost everywhere, with $\nabla \tau$ locally `bounded away from the light cones'. As a consequence, we show that the cosmological time function of [1] is anti-Lipschitz when `regular', and hence induces a definite null distance function. This provides what may be interpreted as a canonical metric space structure on spacetimes which emanate from a common initial singularity, e.g. a `big bang'.Comment: v2: Small changes/improvements, mainly in the Introduction, Section 3.7, and the opening of Section 4, references added, 39 pages, 8 figures. To appear in Classical and Quantum Gravit