Variational problems for Riemannian functionals and arithmetic groups (Q5945305)

The authors introduce a new approach to variational problems on the space of Riemannian structures on a fixed compact manifold of dimension \(n \geq 5.\) Instead of looking for local minima of a functional on the space of Riemannian metrics on a manifold \(M^n\) one looks for local minima of the same functional on the space of Riemannian structures on every manifold \(N^n\) which has the same cohomology \(H^*(N^n)= H^*(M^n)\) and for which the following conditions are satisfied: There is a positive constant \(w(n)\) depending only on the dimension \(n\) such that for every Riemannian metric \(\mu\) on \(N\) with Ricci curvature \(\text{Ric}_{\mu} \geq -(n-1)\) the volume is bounded from below by \(\text{vol}_{\mu}\geq w(n)\) and there is no Riemannian metric of non-negative scalar curvature. This is possible since the authors are able to construct for any \(n \geq 5\) an \(n-\)dimensional smooth homology sphere satisfying these properties. The fundamental groups of these homology spheres are built out of certain arithmetic groups by taking the universal central extension of an appropriate amalgamated free product with several copies of an acyclic group. These constructions use several results on the cohomology of arithmetic groups and the classification of smooth homology spheres. As an application it is shown that for any compact manifold \(M^n\) of dimension \(n \geq 5\) the diameter has infinitely many local minima on the closure with respect to the Gromov-Hausdorff topology of the space of all smooth Riemannian metrics on \(M\) with sectional curvature \(|K|\leq 1\) in the space of all isometry classes of metric spaces homeomorphic to \(M.\) These investigations are motivated by the search for a canonical Riemannian metric on a compact smooth manifold. The results of the paper show that looking for such a canonical metric as a solution of a natural variational problem on the space of Riemannian metrics leads to a non-uniqueness, which in general cannot be avoided. It is shown that in the construction of the fundamental groups of the homology spheres there is enough flexibility such that there is no algorithm to distinguish these groups from the trivial group.