Large manifolds with positive Ricci curvature (Q1911140)

The main result of the paper is the following Theorem A. Given an integer \(n\geq 2\) and an \(\varepsilon>0\), there exists \(\delta=\delta(n,\varepsilon)>0\) such that if \(M\) is an \(n\)-dimensional closed Riemannian manifold with \(\text{Ric}\geq n-1\) and the Gromov-Hausdorff distance between \(M\) and \(S^n\) is at most \(\delta\), then \(\text{Vol}(M)\geq \text{Vol}(S^n)-\varepsilon\). A converse to this theorem is proved by the same author in [ibid., 175-191 (1996; Zbl 0871.53027), see the preceding review]. Using a result by \textit{G. Perelman} [J. Am. Math. Soc. 7, 299-305 (1994; Zbl 0799.53050)], one obtains immediately Corollary B. Given an integer \(n\geq 2\), there exists an \(\varepsilon=\varepsilon(n)>0\) such that if \(M\) is an \(n\)-dimensional closed Riemannian manifold with \(\text{Ric}\geq n-1\) and the Gromov-Hausdorff distance between \(M\) and \(S^n\) is at most \(\varepsilon\), then \(M\) is homeomorphic to \(S^n\). The radius of a compact metric space is the minimal radius of a ball which covers the space. Theorem C. Given an integer \(n\geq 2\) and an \(\varepsilon>0\), there exists \(\delta=\delta(\varepsilon,n)>0\), such that if \(M\) is an \(n\)-dimensional closed Riemannian manifold with \(\text{Ric}\geq n-1\) and radius \(>\pi-\delta\), then \(\text{Vol}(M)>\text{Vol}(S^n)-\varepsilon\).