Total curvatures of model surfaces control topology of complete open manifolds with radial curvature bounded below. I (Q641858)

A \textit{von Mangoldt surface} is a non-compact surface of revolution homeomorphic to the Euclidean plane with a base point satisfying the following curvature condition: The radial curvature function with respect to the base point is non-increasing. Now the authors consider the following class of complete and non-compact Riemannian manifolds \(M\): The radial curvature with respect to a base point is assumed to be bounded from below by the radial curvature of a von Mangoldt surface whose total curvature is bounded from below by \(\pi.\) Then it is shown that all Busemann functions on \(M\) are exhaustions, the manifold \(M\) has finite topological type, and the isometry group is compact.