Filtered ends, proper holomorphic mappings of Kähler manifolds to Riemann surfaces, and Kähler groups (Q2480854)

The authors study the geometry of complete noncompact Kähler manifolds. To state the main result we first need a definition. If \(M\) is a complete noncompact manifold and \(\Upsilon:\widetilde{M}\to M\) is the universal cover, we define the set of filtered ends of \(M\) to be the inverse limit \[ \varprojlim\pi_0 (\Upsilon^{-1}(M\backslash K)), \] where \(K\) ranges over all compact sets of \(M\). Then the authors prove that if \(M\) is a complete noncompact Kähler manifold with bounded geometry and at least \(3\) filtered ends, then \(M\) has a proper holomorphic map onto a Riemann surface. As corollaries of this result, they prove that certain groups cannot be fundamental groups of compact Kähler manifolds, and they give a new proof of a result of \textit{M. Gromov} and \textit{R. Schoen} [Publ. Math., Inst. Hautes Étud. Sci. 76, 165--246 (1992; Zbl 0896.58024)].