Volume comparison in the presence of a Gromov-Hausdorff \(\varepsilon\)-approximation. I (Q1955689)

The paper under review investigates the relation between Gromov-Hausdorff distance and volume of Riemannian manifolds. When a sequence of manifolds has a uniform lower bound on Ricci curvature, then by the theorem of \textit{T. H. Colding} [Ann. Math. (2) 145, No. 3, 477--501 (1997; Zbl 0879.53030)] one knows that Gromov-Hausdorff convergence \((M_k,g_k)\rightarrow (X,g)\) implies convergence of volumes. The paper under review does not make any curvature assumptions and provides a lower bound on the volume of a manifold \(M\) in terms of its Gromov-Hausdorff distance from a flat torus \(T^n\). (On the other hand, the author shows by examples that no such upper bound can exist.) The proof starts from a Gromov-Hausdorff approximation \(f:T^n\rightarrow M\), adapts the barycenter map from \textit{G.\ Besson} et al. [Acta Math. 183, No. 2, 145--169 (1999; Zbl 1035.53038)] to construct a quasi-inverse \(H:M\rightarrow T^n\), and gives a sharp upper bound for the Jacobian of \(H\). When \(f\) is continuous with nonzero degree, this leads to a sharp volume comparison.