Quantitative volume space form rigidity under lower Ricci curvature bound. I (Q2331237)

Let \(H\) be a constant equal either to \(0\) or \(\pm 1\) and let \(M\) be a Riemannian manifold. Under the assumption on the Ricci curvature \(\text{Ric}_M \geq (n-1)H\), the authors show that, roughly speaking, for every point of \(M\) the volumes of small metric balls in the universal covering may determine the diffeomorphism type of the manifold itself. More precisely, if every point of \(M\) admits in the universal covering a ball of fixed radius whose volume is \(\varepsilon\)-close to the volume of the ball of the same radius in a locally symmetric space with constant curvature \(H\), then those spaces must be diffeomorphic. Additionally the metric tensor on \(M\) must be near to that of the \(H\) space-form. A similar result is obtained for the volume entropy when \(H=-1\). The proofs of those results rely on two main techniques. On the one hand, the work of Cheeger-Colding about the study of the relation between the almost volume condition for balls and annuli and the \(\varepsilon\)-closedness in the Gromov-Hausdorff distance to \(H\)-model balls or annulli is crucial. The other key tool exploited by the author is Perel'man's study on Ricci flow and its pseudolocality property. The main idea is to argue by contradiction by considering sequences of manifolds satisfying the hypothesis and converging in the Gromov-Hausdorff topology to some space \(X\). It is shown that \(X\) must be locally symmetric with constant sectional curvature. By passing to the equivariant Gromov-Hausdorff convergence, the local action is proved to be free. The contradiction follows by a stability property for Gromov-Hausdorff convergence shown by Cheeger-Colding. For the estimate on metric tensors one applies the convergence argument by Perel'man.