Vanishing theorems for L2 -cohomology groups (Q4505656)

The extension of Hodge theory of harmonic forms to \(L^{2}\)-cohomology is due to \textit{M. F. Atiyah} [Asterisque 32/33, 43-72 (1976; Zbl 0323.58015)]. It is used in this paper in order to study an old problem of Hopf who asked whether the sign of the sectional curvature determines the Euler characteristic of a compact Riemannian manifold. Some results in the study of this problem are obtained by M. Stern in an unpublished preprint in 1989, in the case when the curvature is pinched between two negative numbers, by \textit{M. Gromov} [J. Differ. Geom. 33, No. 1, 263-292 (1991; Zbl 0719.53042)] more generally for so-called Kähler hyperbolic manifolds and recently by \textit{J. Jost} and \textit{K. Zuo} [Commun. Anal. Geom. 8, No. 1, 1-30 (2000; Zbl 0978.32024)] who studied the Kähler case in the case where the metric is of nonpositive sectional curvature. \textit{A. Borel} [Ann. Acad. Sci. Fenn., Ser. A I, Math. 10, 95-105 (1985; Zbl 0586.57022)] also studied the problem for symmetric spaces of noncompact type and rank \(1\), i.e. for symmetric spaces that have negative sectional curvature. In the paper under review, a more elementary approach to Borel's result in the case of almost Hermitian symmetric spaces is obtained and the method seems to be applicable to handle all the cases. Even the vanishing theorem of \(L^{2}\)-Betti numbers for Hermitian symmetric spaces also follows from Gromov's work, the method in the paper under review does not need a Kähler form. As a final application, a vanishing theorem of the \(L^{2}\)-Betti numbers of a semisimple Lie group \(G\) is given in those cases where the corresponding symmetric space satisfies the preceding assumptions. The result can be also considered as an \(L^{2}\)-version of \textit{Y. Matsushima}'s vanishing theorem for the first Betti number [Ann. Math. (2) 75, 312-330 (1962; Zbl 0118.38303)].