On connection of the geometry of a four-dimensional open manifold with the topology of its ideal boundaries (Q1920700)

As is now well-known, the classification of open manifolds of nonpositive curvature and rank greater than 1 is based on the close connection between the geometry of Hadamard manifolds and that of their ideal boundaries \(O(X)\), \(B(X)\), \(X(\infty)\) previously defined by \textit{W. Ballmann, M. Gromov} and \textit{V. Schroeder} [``Manifolds of nonpositive curvature'', Progr. Math. 61, Birkhäuser (1985; Zbl 0591.53001)] and also \(DL(X)\) by \textit{V. B. Marenich} [Sib. Math. J. 34, No. 5, 883-897 (1993); translation from Sib. Mat. Zh. 34, No. 5, 103-119 (1993; Zbl 0820.53044)]. In this paper is presented the notice: if some of those ideal boundaries of an orientable 4-dimensional manifold \(X\) of nonnegative curvature and rank greater than 1 is not a singleton, then \(X\) is isometric to a direct product or is homeomorphic to the Euclidean space \(\mathbb{R}^4\).