Sufficient conditions for open manifolds to be diffeomorphic to Euclidean spaces (Q549978)

The authors extend the following result of \textit{J. Cheeger} and \textit{T. H. Colding} [J. Differ. Geom. 46, No.~3, 406--480 (1997; Zbl 0902.53034)]: Complete, non-compact Riemannian manifolds with non-negative Ricci curvature and with a lower volume bound are diffeomorphic to Euclidean spaces. The extension consists in replacing the non-negative Ricci curvature condition by a condition on the radial Ricci (sectional) curvature. It is shown in Theorem 3.1 that, for a complete, non-compact, connected Riemannian \(n\)-manifold, the radial Ricci (sectional) curvature at some point is bounded from below by that of some model. Under some assumptions for the volume growth it is shown, in Theorem 3.4, that the manifold is diffeomorphic to a Euclidean \(n\)-space.