English

The Smale conjecture and min-max theory

Differential Geometry 2025-05-13 v3 Geometric Topology

Abstract

We give a new proof of the Smale conjecture for RP3\mathbb{RP}^3 and all lens spaces using minimal surfaces and min-max theory. For RP3\mathbb{RP}^3, the conjecture was first proved in 2019 by Bamler-Kleiner using Ricci flow.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2310.05756,
  title  = {The Smale conjecture and min-max theory},
  author = {Daniel Ketover and Yevgeny Liokumovich},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2310.05756},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

To appear in Invent.math

R2 v1 2026-06-28T12:44:42.616Z