Submanifolds, isoperimetric inequalities and optimal transportation (Q982491)

A manifold is said to be harmonic if the geodesic spheres have constant mean curvature. Any rank-one symmetric space is a 2-point homogeneous space and hence harmonic. The Damek-Ricci spaces provide examples of harmonic spaces which are not 2-point homogeneous spaces. A manifold is said to be Cartan-Hadamard if it is a complete simply connected Riemannian manifold with nonpositive curvature. A Cartan-Hadamard manifold is said to be asymptotically harmonic if its horospheres have constant mean curvature \(h\). In the present paper, the authors examine Cartan-Hadamard manifolds of strictly negative curvature which are asymptotically harmonic (such manifolds are topologically \(\mathbb{R}^n\) so the topology plays no role and only the geometry is at issue). They establish rigidity under suitable curvature bounds, determine the volume entropy and the spectrum. When the curvature is negatively pinched, they find sharp upper and lower bounds for the volume growth of the horospheres. Other properties of the asymptotic geometry are studied as well. \S1 of the paper introduces the matter at hand and \S2 establishes notational conventions treating the Hessian and Laplacian of Busemann functions and the Riccati equation. \S3 deals with comparisons of spheres on Cartan-Hadamard manifolds with the constant sectional curvature case. In \S4, the authors turn to asymptotically harmonic Cartan-Hadamard manifolds discussing the entropy and the spectrum, rigidity, the growth of horospheres, and the mean value property. \S5 deals with the asymptotic behavior of the volume form. The asymptotic volume-density function is studied and a characterization of asymptotic harmonicity is given. \S6 treats the Margulis function and visual and harmonic measures.