4-dimensional locally \(\mathrm{CAT}(0)\)-manifolds with no Riemannian smoothings (Q662415)

A closed topological manifold equipped with a locally CAT(0)-metric is called a locally CAT(0)-manifold. It is interesting to study the difference, within the class of closed manifolds, between (1) supporting a Riemannian metric of nonpositive sectional curvature, and (2) supporting a locally CAT(0)-metric. In dimensions two and three, there is no difference between these two classes of manifolds, but in all dimensions \(\geq\) 5, there are examples of locally CAT(0)-manifolds which do not support any Riemannian metric of nonpositive sectional curvature. In the paper under review the authors discuss 4-dimensional manifolds and obtain the following result: There exists a 4-dimensional closed manifold \(M\) with the following four properties: (1) \(M\) supports a locally CAT(0)-metric; (2) \(M\) is smoothable, and the universal cover \({\tilde M}\) is diffeomorphic to \(\mathbb R^4\); (3) \(\pi_{1}(M)\) is not isomorphic to the fundamental group of any compact Riemannian manifold of nonpositive sectional curvature; (4) If \(K\) is any compact locally CAT(0)-manifold, then \(M \times K\) is a locally CAT(0)-manifold which does not support any Riemannian metric of nonpositive sectional curvature. They conclude this paper with the following interesting questions: 1. Can one find locally CAT(0) closed 4-dimensional manifolds \(M^{4}\) with the property that their universal covers \({\tilde M^{4}}\) are either (1) not homeomorphic to \(\mathbb R^4\), or (2) homeomorphic, but not diffeomorphic to \(\mathbb R^4\)? 2. Can one construct examples of smooth, locally CAT(-1)-manifolds \(M^{n}\) with the property that \(\partial ^{\infty}{\tilde M}\) is homeomorphic to \(S^{n-1}\), but which do not support any Riemannian metric of nonpositive sectional curvature?