The length of the shortest closed geodesic on positively curved 2-spheres (Q2114159)

The paper adds aspects to the question in [\textit{M. Gromov}, J. Differ. Geom. 18, 1--147 (1983; Zbl 0515.53037)] whether the length of the shortest closed geodesic in a compact Riemannian manifold can be bounded purely in terms of the diameter and the dimension of the manifold. This is known classically for non-simply connected manifolds and for the 2-sphere by [\textit{C. B. Croke}, J. Differ. Geom. 27, No. 1, 1--21 (1988; Zbl 0642.53045); \textit{M. Maeda}, Kyushu J. Math. 48, No. 1, 9--18 (1994; Zbl 0818.53064); \textit{A. Nabutovsky} and \textit{R. Rotman}, Int. Math. Res. Not. 2002, No. 23, 1211--1222 (2002; Zbl 1003.53030); \textit{S. Sabourau}, Bull. Soc. Math. Fr. 132, No. 1, 105--136 (2004; Zbl 1064.53020)]. A refined version for the \textit{radius} \[ R(S^2,g):=\min_{x\in S^2}\max_{y\in S^2} d(x,y) \] is due to [\textit{R. Rotman}, Geom. Dedicata 110, 143--157 (2005; Zbl 1080.53031)]. The optimal bound of twice the diameter is known to be wrong by \textit{F. Balacheff} et al. [Geom. Funct. Anal. 19, No. 1, 1--10 (2009; Zbl 1201.53050)], but the authors show here that the optimal bound is at most 3 times the diameter (Theorem 1.1). One should note that 3 times the radius is the optimal bound realized by the (non-smooth) Calabi-Croke sphere. The spaces are approximated by smooth spheres, though. For the second result (Theorem 1.2) the authors restricts the study to positively curved 2-spheres with a pinching condition. Using a isoperimetric inequality (Theorem 4.1) they improve their bound further. This bound is optimal and realized by the round spheres.