Four-dimensional manifolds with positive biorthogonal curvature (Q1688487)

In this note (which comprises parts of the author's PhD thesis) the author classifies up to homeomorphisms the closed simply-connected 4-manifolds that admit a Riemannian metric with positive biorthogonal curvature (the average of pair of sectional curvatures of orthogonal planes). The main result is: ``Let \(M\) be a smoothable closed simply-connected topological 4-manifold. Up to endowing \(M\) with different smooth structures, the following are equivalent: (i) \(M\) admits a metric with strictly positive biorthogonal curvature, (ii) \(M\) admits a metric with Ric strictly positive, (iii) \(M\) admits a metric with strictly positive scalar curvature.'' The author recalls the classification of closed simply-connected 4-manifolds with strictly positive scalar curvature. The key result that the strict positivity of the biorthogonal curvature is preserved under connected sums is proved. The author also presents an interesting open problem: to determine whether any finitely presented group can be realized as the fundamental group of a 4-manifold with biorthogonal curvature strictly positive.