Related papers: Perfect Morse functions and exotic S^2 x S^2's

We show that the main theorem of Morse theory holds for a large class of functions on singular spaces. The function must satisfy certain conditions extending the usual requirements on a manifold that Condition C holds and the gradient flow…

We prove that a sequence of possibly branched, weak immersions of the two-sphere $S^2$ into an arbitrary compact riemannian manifold $(M^m,h)$ with uniformly bounded area and uniformly bounded $L^2-$norm of the second fundamental form…

We investigate the validity of the optimal higher-order Sobolev inequality $H_k^2(M^n)\hookrightarrow L^{\frac{2n}{n-2k}}(M^n)$ on a closed Riemannian manifold when the remainder term is the $L^2-$norm. Unlike the case $k=1$, the optimal…

In the 1950s Morse defined the analogue of Morse functions for topological manifolds. In many instances, when mathematicians are using techniques on topological manifolds that appear to be Morse-theoretic in nature, there is a topological…

We prove that the Ozsvath-Szabo contact invariant of a closed contact 3-manifold with positive Giroux torsion vanishes.

We describe an extension of Morse theory to smooth functions on compact Riemannian manifolds, without any nondegeneracy assumptions except that the critical locus must have only finitely many connected components.

We construct pairs and continuous families of isospectral yet locally non-isometric orbifolds via an equivariant version of Sunada's method. We also observe that if a good orbifold $\mathcal{O}$ and a smooth manifold $M$ are isospectral,…

We show a rigidity theorem for the Seiberg-Witten invariants mod 2 for families of spin 4-manifolds. A mechanism of this rigidity theorem also gives a family version of 10/8-type inequality. As an application, we prove the existence of…

This paper introduces two new spectral invariants of torsion-free $\mathrm{G}_2$-structures on closed orbifolds and computes their values on all Joyce orbifolds. These invariants are shown to be more discerning than the…

This paper has been withdrawn by the author due to a serious gap in the proof of the main theorem.

We study curvature functionals for immersed 2-spheres in a compact, three-dimensional Riemannian manifold M. Under the assumption that the sectional curvature of M is strictly positive, we prove the existence of a smoothly immersed sphere…

We provide an extension of Obata's theorem to Finsler geometry and establish some rigidity results based on a second order differential equation. Mainly, we prove that every complete connected Finsler manifold of positive constant flag…

A Morse-Bott volume form on a manifold is a top-degree form which vanishes along a non-degenerate critical submanifold. We prove that two such forms are diffeomorphic (by a diffeomorphism fixed on the submanifold) provided that their…

We prove the following vanishing theorem. Let M be an irreducible symmetric space of noncompact type whose dimension exceeds 2 and $M\ne SO_0(2,2)/SO(2)\tm SO(2).$ Let E be any vector bundle over M, Then any E-valued $L^2$ harmonic 1-form…

We continue our program initiated in [arXiv:0912.4261] to consider supersymmetric surface operators in a topologically-twisted N=2 pure SU(2) gauge theory, and apply them to the study of four-manifolds and related invariants. Elegant…

We consider actions of non-compact simple Lie groups preserving an analytic rigid geometric structure of algebraic type on a compact manifold. The structure is not assumed to be unimodular, so an invariant measure may not exist. Ergodic…

We construct some nonsmoothable actions of Z2 * Z2 on spin four-manifolds by using an equivariant version of Furuta' s 10/8inequality. The examples satisfy following property: any proper subgroup of Z2 * Z2 is smoothable for some smooth…

We give a description of the completion of the manifold of all smooth Riemannian metrics on a fixed smooth, closed, finite-dimensional, orientable manifold with respect to a natural metric called the $L^2$ metric. The primary motivation for…

In this note we prove a nonexistence result for proper biharmonic maps from complete non-compact Riemannian manifolds of dimension \(m=\dim M\geq 3\) with infinite volume that admit an Euclidean type Sobolev inequality into general…

We consider closed topological 4-manifolds $M$ with universal cover ${S^2\times{S^2}}$ and Euler characteristic $\chi(M) = 1$. All such manifolds with $\pi=\pi_1(M)\cong {\mathbb Z}/4$ are homotopy equivalent. In this case, we show that…