A quantitative relative index theorem and Gromov's conjectures on positive scalar curvature (with an appendix by Jinmin Wang and Zhizhang Xie) (Q6111634)

The author proves some conjectures of \textit{M. Gromov} [Geom. Funct. Anal. 28, No. 3, 645--726 (2018; Zbl 1396.53068); in: Perspectives in scalar curvature. In 2 volumes. Singapore: World Scientific. 1--514 (2023; Zbl 07733259)] about the implications of scalar curvature bounds for band-widths, bounds on widths of cubes, and rigidity of Lipschitz constants (lower bounds on the Lipschitz constants for Lipschitz homeomorphisms from certain subsets of spheres to corresponding subsets in the standard unit sphere). Author's results involve an assumption of nonvanishing of a certain higher index on a certain submanifold, whereas Gromov's conjectures used the closely related assumption that no such submanifolds (or their products with tori) admit metrics of positive scalar curvature. The author remarks that in [\textit{J. Wang} et al., ``A proof of Gromov's cube inequality on scalar curvature.'' Preprint, \url{arXiv:2105.12054}] a related method of proof to remove the difference between the assumptions is used. The paper under review provides an unusually clear exposition of technically intricate arguments.