On the fundamental groups of manifolds with integral curvature bounds (Q2569207)

\textit{J. W. Milnor} [J. Differ. Geom. 2, 1--7 (1968; Zbl 0162.25401)] dealt with the structure of fundamental group \(\pi_1(M)\) of an \(n\)-dimensional manifold \(M\) with nonnegative Ricci curvature and proved the following theorem: Every finitely generated subgroup of \(\pi_1(M)\) is of polynomial growth with degree \(\leq n\). In the present paper this theorem is generalized to the manifolds with integral Ricci curvature bounds. The result may be summarized as follows: Given an integer \(n\geq 2\), \(v> 0\), \(D> 0\) and \(\kappa> 0\), there exists an \(\varepsilon= \varepsilon(n,v,D,\kappa)> 0\) such that if \(M\) is a manifold admitting a metric such that \[ \text{diam}(M)\leq D,\;\text{vol}(M)> v,\;\text{Ric}_M\geq -(n- 1)\kappa, \] \[ {1\over \text{vol}(M)} \int_M (\text{Ric}_-)_+ d\text{\,vol}<\varepsilon, \] then \(\pi_1(M)\) contains an abelian subgroup of finite index, that is, \(\pi_1(M)\) is almost abelian. If the first condition is replaced by an \(L^p\)-curvature bound, one still has the similar result, which states that if \(M\) admits a metric satisfying \[ \text{diam}(M)\leq D,\;\text{vol}(M)\geq v,\;\int_M|R|^p\,d\text{\,vol}\leq C, \] \[ {1\over\text{vol}(M)} \int_M (-\text{Ric}_-)^p\,d\text{\,vol}< \varepsilon,\;(p> n/2), \] then \(\pi_1(M)\) is of polynomial growth with degree \(\leq n\).