Some new obstruction results for compact positively Ricci curved manifolds (Q2381101)

The authors study the fundamental group and diameters of positively Ricci curved Riemannian \(n\)-manifolds. Problem 5 listed in Petersen's Comparison Geometry Problem List in [\textit{M. Lovric, M. Min-Oo} and \textit{M. Y. K. Wang} (eds), Riemannian geometry. Papers from a workshop held Aug. 3--13, 1993, in Waterloo, Canada. Fields Institute Monographs. 4. (Providence), RI: American Mathematical Society (AMS) (1996; Zbl 0832.00017)] (87--109) states: Considering a compact positively Ricci curved manifold, what can be said about the fundamental group depending only on the dimension \(n\), except that it is finite? The second author presented this problem as a conjecture in a previous paper [\textit{J.-Y. Wu}, Ann. Global Anal. Geom. 16, No.~4, 371--382 (1998; Zbl 0915.53019)]. The following theorem is provided: Given \(n\geq 2\), there exist constants \(p_n\) and \(c_n\) depending only on \(n\) such that if a compact Riemannian \(n\)-manifold \(M^n\) has the Ricci curvature \(\text{Ric}(M^n)>0\), then: {\parindent 5mm \begin{itemize}\item[a.] the first Betti number \(b_1(M^n,\mathbb{Z}_p)\) with \(p\)-cyclic group coefficient \(\mathbb{Z}_p\) satisfies \(b_1(M^n,\mathbb{Z}_p)\leq n-1\) for all prime \(p\geq p_n\), and \item[b.] the ratio of diameters satisfies \(\text{diam}(\widetilde{M}^n)/ \text{diam}(M^n)<c_n\), where \(\widetilde{M}^n\) denotes the universal covering of \(M^n\). \end{itemize}} The main tool is the theory of equivariant Hausdorff convergence [\textit{K. Fukaya} and \textit{T. Yamaguchi}, Ann. Math. 136, No.~2, 253--333 (1992; Zbl 0770.53028)]. Moreover, a weak Margulis's lemma was also obtained for Riemannian manifolds with a lower Ricci curvature bound.