On the curvature of biquotients (Q661306)

Let \(M\) be a Riemannian manifold \((M, <.>)\). \(M\) is said to have \textit{quasi positive curvature} (resp. \textit{almost positive curvature}) if \(M\) has non-negative sectional curvature and there is a point (resp. an open dense set of points) at which all \(2\)-planes have positive sectional curvature. Manifolds of this type lie ``between'' manifolds with non-negative curvature and manifolds with positive sectional curvature, and they provide interesting material to better understand manifolds with positive curvature and manifolds with non-negative curvature. In this paper the author proves that some Eschenburg spaces and some Bazaikin spaces admit metrics with this type of curvature. Let \(G\) be a compact Lie group, \(U\subset G\times G\) a closed subgroup, and let \(U\) act on \(G\) via \((u_1, u_2)\star g = (u_1g u_2^{-1}\)), \(g\in G\), \((u_1, u_2) \in U\). This action is free if and only if, for all non-trivial \((u_1, u_2) \in U\), \(u_1\) is never conjugate to \(u_2\) in \(G\). The resulting manifold is called a biquotient. Eschenburg spaces are defined by \(E^7_{p,q} =SU(3) // S^1_{p,q}\) where \(p=(p_1,p_2,p_3)\), \(q=(q_1,q_2,q_3) \in {\mathbb{Z}}^3\), \(\sum p_i=\sum p \;q_i\) and \(S^1_{p,q}\) acts on \(SU(3)\) via \(z \star A = \mathrm {diag} (z^{p_1}, z^{p_2}, z^{p_3}) \cdot A\cdot \mathrm {diag}(\overline{z}^{q_1}, \overline{z}^{q_2},\overline{z}^{q_3})\), \(z\in S^1\), \(A\in SU(3)\). Bazaikin spaces are defined by \(B^{13}_{q_1,\dots ,q_5} = SU(5) // (Sp(2)\cdot S^1_{q_1,\dots ,q_5}\) where \(q_1,\dots ,q_5 \in \mathbb{Z}\), \(q=\sum q_i\), and \(Sp(2)\cdot S^1_{q_1,\dots ,q_5}= Sp(2)\dot S^1_{q_1,\dots ,q_5}/\mathbb{Z}_2 \) acts on \(SU(5)\) via \([A,z]\star B= \mathrm {diag} (z^{q_1}, \dots , z^{q_5})\cdot B\cdot \mathrm {diag} (A, \overline{z}^{q})\), \(z\in S^1\), \(A\in Sp(2)\subset SU(4)\), \(B\in SU(5)\). The author proves that: {\parindent=7mm \begin{itemize}\item[(i)]all Eschenburg spaces \(E^7_{p,q}\) admit a metric with quasi-positive curvature (Theorem 2.3); \item[(ii)]the Eschenburg space \(E^7_{p,q}\), with \(p=(1,1,0)\) and \(q=(0,0,2)\) admits almost positive curvature (Theorem 2.4); \item[(iii)]all Eschenburg spaces \(E^7_{p,q}\) with \(q_1<q_2=p_1<p_2\leq p_3<q_3\) or \(q_1>q_2=p_1>p_2\geq p_3>q_3\) admit almost positive curvature (Theorem 2.6) \item[(iv)]all Bazaikin spaces \(B^{13}_{q_1,\dots ,q_5}\), such that \(0<q_1,\dots ,q_4\) admit quasi positive curvature (Theorem 3.3); \item[(v)] the Bazaikin space \(B^{13}_{1,1,1,1,-1}\) admits almost positive curvature (Theorem 3.5). \end{itemize}} He also proves that there are infinitely many orbifolds of the form \((S^3 \times S^3) //T^2\) admitting almost positive curvature (Theorem 4.2). (\((S^3 \times S^3),<,>_1//T^2\) has almost positive curvature if and only if the action is not free.) Bazaikin spaces, in particular, may be distinguished by the order \(s\) of the cohomology groups \(H^6 =H^8 =\mathbb{Z}_s\) (see [\textit{Ya. V. Bazaikin}, Sib. Math. J. 37, No. 6, 1068--1085 (1996); translation from Sib. Mat. Zh. 37, No. 6, 1219--1237 (1996; Zbl 0874.53034)]). This fact allows one to write down infinitely many positively curved Bazaikin spaces which are distinct even up to homotopy equivalence. \textit{L. A. Florit} and \textit{W. Ziller} [J. Eur. Math. Soc. (JEMS) 11, No. 1, 189--205 (2009; Zbl 1161.53027)] proved that there are only finitely many positively curved Bazaikin spaces for a given cohomology ring. The author proves that the quasi-positively curved Bazaikin spaces \(B^{13}_{1,1,1,n,-n}\), with \(n \geq 1\) odd, share the same cohomology ring but are pairwise homeomorphically distinct (Theorem 3.7). He concludes that the deformation conjecture for simply connected manifolds and the cohomology Klingenberg-Sakai conjecture cannot be both true. The paper includes a detailed introduction with many references on the subject and a clear contextualization of the theorems proved. Section 1 introduces biquotient actions and metrics. Section 2 deals with Eschenburg spaces, Section 3 with Bazaikin spaces. Section 4, the last, deals with torus quotients of \((S^3 \times S^3)\).