On the fundamental group of manifolds with almost nonnegative Ricci curvature (Q4804115)

This paper is a contribution to the solution of a conjecture by M. Gromov. The conjecture states that the fundamental group of a manifold with almost nonnegative Ricci curvature is almost nilpotent. The author of this paper proves that, under the additional hypothesis that the conjugate radius of the manifold is bounded below, there exists a nilpotent subgroup of finite index of the fundamental group. More precisely, the author proves the following theorem: if \(M\) is an \(n\)-dimensional compact Riemannian manifold with diam\((M)\leq 1\) and conj\(_M\geq c_0 > 0\), then there exist \(\varepsilon>0\) and \(\omega>0\), both depending only on \(n\) and \(c_0\), such that if Ric\(_M\geq -(n-1)\varepsilon^2\), there exists a nilpotent subgroup \(\Lambda\) of \(\pi_1(M)\) satisfying \([\pi_1(M):\Lambda]\leq\omega\).