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We obtain restrictions on the rational homotopy types of mapping spaces and of classifying spaces of homotopy automorphisms by means of the theory of positive weight decompositions. The theory applies, in particular, to connected components…

In a recent paper, the authors proved that no spin foliation on a compact enlargeable manifold with Hausdorff homotopy graph admits a metric of positive scalar curvature on its leaves. This result extends groundbreaking results of…

We prove that for cobordant closed spin manifolds of dimension $n\geq 3$ the associated spaces of metrics with invertible Dirac operator are homotopy equivalent. This is the spinorial counterpart of a similar result on positive scalar…

In this paper we describe a homotopy torsion theory in the category of small symmetric monoidal categories. Thanks to the use of natural isomorphisms as basis for the nullhomotopy structure, this homotopy torsion theory enjoys some…

Manifolds admitting positive sectional curvature are conjectured to have rigid homotopical structure and, in particular, comparatively small Euler charateristics. In this article, we obtain upper bounds for the Euler characteristic of a…

For a finite group $G$, we define the $G$-cobordism category in dimension two. We show there is a one-to-one correspondence between the connected components of its classifying space and the abelianization of $G$. Also, we find an…

We consider mapping class groups \Gamma(M) = pi_0 Diff(M fix \partial M) of smooth compact simply connected oriented 4-manifolds M bounded by a collection of 3-spheres. We show that if M contains CP^2 (with either orientation) as a…

Every smooth manifold contains particles which propagate. These form objects and morphisms of a category equipped with a functor to the category of Abelian groups, turning this into a 0+1 topological field theory. We investigate the…

Using geometric arguments, we compute the group of homotopy classes of maps from a closed $(n+1)$-dimensional manifold to the $n$-sphere for $n \geq 3$. Our work extends results from Kirby, Melvin and Teichner for closed oriented…

In this paper we take an approach similar to that in [M] to establish a positive mass theorem for asymptotically hyperbolic spin manifolds admitting corners along a hypersurface. The main analysis uses an integral representation of a…

It is the aim of this article to determine curvature quantities of an arbitrary Riemannian monotone metric on the space of positive matrices resp. nonsingular density matrices. Special interest is focused on the scalar curvature due to its…

In these lecture notes we discuss a body of work in which Morse theory is used to construct various homology and cohomology operations. In the classical setting of algebraic topology this is done by constructing a moduli space of graph…

We classify complete curvature homogeneous metrics on simply connected four dimensional manifolds which are invariant under a cohomogeneity one action. We show that they are either isometric to a symmetric space with one of its…

Positive Quaternion Kaehler Manifolds are Riemannian manifolds with holonomy contained in Sp(n)Sp(1) and with positive scalar curvature. Conjecturally, they are symmetric spaces. We offer a new approach to this field of study via Rational…

In this revised version (August 2025), we add a survey of \infty-categorical (co)limits and a replacement lemma for higher functoriality (Lem. 1.4.5), a framework for explicit models of punctured tubular neighborhoods ({\S}3.4), and a new…

Let $M_\Sigma$ be an $n$-dimensional Thom-Mather stratified space of depth $1$. We denote by $\beta M$ the singular locus and by $L$ the associated link. In this paper we study the problem of when such a space can be endowed with a wedge…

In this paper, we introduce a bordism category $\mathcal{C}_d^{PL}$ whose objects are bundles of closed $(d-1)$-dimensional piecewise linear manifolds and whose morphisms are bundles of $d$-dimensional piecewise linear cobordisms. In the…

This is a survey paper on spaces of automorphisms of manifolds and spaces of manifolds in a fixed homotopy type. It describes the main theorems of traditional surgery theory, but also the main theorems of pseudoisotopy theory, alias…

In this paper, we completely classify all compact 4-manifolds with positive isotropic curvature. We show that they are diffeomorphic to $\mathbb{S}^4,$ or $\mathbb{R}\mathbb{P}^4$ or quotients of $\mathbb{S}^3\times \mathbb{R}$ by a…

We explicitly construct an SO(2)-action on a skeletal version of the 2-dimensional framed bordism bicategory. By the 2-dimensional Cobordism Hypothesis for framed manifolds, we obtain an SO(2)-action on the core of fully-dualizable objects…