Surgery stable curvature conditions (Q289820)

A curvature condition is said to be stable under surgeries of codimension \(k\) if given an \(n\)-dimensional Riemannian manifold \((M,g)\) satisfying this condition and an embedded \((n-k)\)-sphere \(S^{n-k}\subset M\), the manifold \(\chi(M,S^{n-k}):=M\setminus (S^{n-k}\times D^k)\cup_{S^{n-k}\times S^{k-1}}(D^{n-k+1}\times S^{k-1})\) obtained by removing a tubular neighborhood \(S^{n-k}\times D^k\) of \(S^{n-k}\) and gluing back a copy of \(D^{n-k+1}\times S^{k-1}\) also admits a Riemannian metric satisfying the same condition. Establishing the stability of curvature conditions under surgery is a difficult and delicate problem in Riemannian geometry. Remarkable examples of such achievements are the papers of \textit{M. Gromov} and \textit{H. B. Lawson jun.} [Ann. Math. (2) 111, 423--434 (1980; Zbl 0463.53025)] and \textit{R. Schoen} and \textit{S.-T. Yau} [Manuscr. Math. 28, 159--183 (1979; Zbl 0423.53032)], who independently proved that positive scalar curvature is stable under surgeries of codimension \(\geq3\). The paper under review builds on the deformation techniques pioneered in the above references to establish the most general surgery stability criteria available to date. Roughly, it is proved that an open curvature condition is stable under surgeries of codimension \(c\geq 3\) if it is satisfied by the curvature operator of the product \(S^{c-1}\times \mathbb R^{n-c+1}\) which is the ``neck'' introduced during the surgery. A comprehensive summary of the previous surgery stability results that this criterion generalizes is given in the introduction. More refined results are also provided, covering curvature conditions that are not necessarily open (but satisfy an ``inner cone condition''), surgeries along the normal bundle of submanifolds other than spheres, and surgeries equivariant under isometric actions. This elegant paper, which is based on the results of the author's PhD thesis [Surgery stable curvature conditions. Münster: Univ. Münster, Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät, Fachbereich Mathematik und Informatik (Diss.) (2012; Zbl 1268.53001)], will likely become an important reference for geometers attempting to push curvature conditions to their topological limits.