Related papers: A Geometric Approach to the Modified Milnor Proble…

We study the fundamental group of an open $n$-manifold $M$ of nonnegative Ricci curvature. We show that if there is an integer $k$ such that any tangent cone at infinity of the Riemannian universal cover of $M$ is a metric cone, whose…

Let $M$ be an open (complete and non-compact) manifold with $\mathrm{Ric}\ge 0$ and escape rate not $1/2$. It is known that under these conditions, the fundamental group $\pi_1(M)$ has a finitely generated torsion-free nilpotent subgroup…

We consider the classical Picard's problem for non-parabolic complete K\"ahler manifolds with non-negative Ricci curvature. Based on the global Green function approach, we give a positive answer to Picard's problem under certain condition…

It was conjectured by Milnor in 1968 that the fundamental group of a complete manifold with nonnegative Ricci curvature is finitely generated. The main result of this paper is a counterexample, which provides an example $M^7$ with ${\rm…

We show that an arbitrary nilprogression can be approximated by a proper coset nilprogression in upper-triangular form. This can be thought of as a nilpotent version of the Freiman-Bilu result that a generalised arithmetic progression can…

We study the fundamental group of an open $n$-manifold $M$ of nonnegative Ricci curvature with additional stability condition on $\widetilde{M}$, the Riemannian universal cover of $M$. We prove that if any tangent cone of $\widetilde{M}$ at…

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…

In this paper, using the Milnor-type theorem technique, we provide on each nilpotent five dimensional Lie group, some global existence result of a pair (g, c) consisting of a left-invariant Riemannian metric g and a positive constant c such…

Let $M$ be a 4-dimensional open manifold with nonnegative Ricci curvature. In this paper, we prove that if the universal cover of $M$ has Euclidean volume growth, then the fundamental group $\pi_1(M)$ is finitely generated. This result…

We present a survey of results related to the Milnor's problem on group growth. We discuss the cases of polynomial growth, exponential but not uniformly exponential growth, but the main part of the article is devoted to the intermediate…

Gromov's theorem states that a finitely generated group has polynomial growth if and only if it is virtually nilpotent. A key ingredient in its proof is the small doubling property. In this work, we study entropy analogues of this property…

In this paper we introduce a new approach to variational problems on the space Riem(M^n) of Riemannian structures (i.e. isometry classes of Riemannan metrics) on any fixed compact manifold M^n of dimension n >= 5. This approach often…

Understanding the relationships between geometry and topology is a central theme in Riemannian geometry. We establish two results on the fundamental groups of open (complete and noncompact) $n$-manifolds with nonnegative Ricci curvature and…

Building on work of Wilson, we show that if $G$ is a finitely generated residually soluble group whose growth function $\gamma$ satisfies $(\log \gamma(n))/ n^{1/4} \to 0$ as $n \to \infty$ then $G$ is virtually nilpotent. This shows that…

In this work, we use the Ricci flow approach to study the gap phenomenon of Riemannian manifolds with non-negative curvature and sub-critical scaling invariant curvature decay. The first main result is a quantitative Ricci flow existence…

In early 80's M.Gromov showed that there exists a constant $\epsilon$ such that any compact Riemannian manifold $M^n$ with $|K|_{M^n} \cdot diam^2(M^n) \leq \epsilon$ can be finitely covered by a nilmanifold. The present paper illustrates…

Let (N,g) be a nilpotent Lie group endowed with an invariant geometric structure (cf. symplectic, complex, hypercomplex or any of their `almost' versions). We define a left invariant Riemannian metric on N compatible with g to be minimal,…

Consider a closed Riemannian $n$-manifold $M$ admitting a negatively curved Riemannian metric. We show that for every Riemannian metric on $M$ of sufficiently small volume, there is a point in the universal cover of $M$ such that the volume…

Some nilpotent Lie groups possess a transformation group analogous to the similarity group acting on the Euclidean space. We call such a pair a nilpotent similarity structure. It is notably the case for all Carnot groups and their…

We show that if $M$ is a sub-Riemannian manifold and $N$ is a Carnot group such that the nilpotentization of $M$ at almost every point is isomorphic to $N$, then there are subsets of $N$ of positive measure that embed into $M$ by…