Finite diffeomorphism theorem for manifolds with lower Ricci curvature and bounded energy (Q6652003)

One of the earliest and best-known finiteness theorems is the celebrated result of \textit{J. Cheeger} [Am. J. Math. 92, 61--74 (1970; Zbl 0194.52902)] that states that the set of Riemannian manifolds of a given dimension \(n\) whose sectional curvature is bounded above in magnitude by \(K>0\), volume is bounded below by \(\nu>0\) and diameter above by \(D\) possesses at most a finite number of diffeomorphism types. Later, \textit{M. T. Anderson} and \textit{J. Cheeger} [Geom. Funct. Anal. 1, No. 3, 231--252 (1991; Zbl 0764.53026)] established a finiteness theorem for the diffeomorphism types of the class of closed Riemannian \(n\)-manifolds \(M\) whose Ricci curvature is bounded in magnitude by \(n-1\), volume bounded below by \(\nu >0\) and whose energy \(\int_M |\mathrm{Rm}|^{n/2}\) is bounded above by \(\Lambda\).\N\NIn this article the authors concern themselves with establishing a finiteness theorem like that of Anderson and Cheeger above, but where they relax the requirement on the Ricci curvature to only ask that the Ricci curvature be bounded below by \(-(n-1)\).\N\NNamely, they show that given a positive integer \(n\), a real number \(\nu>0\), a real number \(D \geq 0\) and a real number \(\Lambda \geq 0\), the space of such closed Riemannian manifolds, where \(n\), \(\nu\), \(D\) and \(\Lambda\) serve as the dimension, a lower volume bound, an upper diameter bound and an upper bound on the energy, respectively, has finitely many diffeomorphism types where the number of diffeomorphism types is bounded by a number that depends only on \(n\), \(\nu\), \(D\), and \(\Lambda\).\N\NIn proving their main result, the authors rely on the notion of Reifenberg radius of a metric space. They use a result of \textit{J. Cheeger} [Geom. Funct. Anal. 13, No. 1, 20--72 (2003; Zbl 1086.53051)] that shows that the tangent cone of a Gromov-Hausdorff limit of a sequence of closed manifolds, where \(n\), \(\nu\), \(D\) and \(\Lambda\) serve as the dimension, a lower volume bound, an upper diameter bound and an upper bound on the energy, respectively, is the cone over a space form \(S^{n-1}/\Gamma\), where the cardinality of \(\Gamma\) is bounded above by a constant that only depends on the dimension \(n\) and the volume lower bound \(\nu\). This yields a lower bound for the Reifenberg radius.\N\NThe authors employ an auxiliary decomposition theorem that divides each closed manifold into body and neck regions. The upshot is that the control of the number of diffeomorphism types for the body region depends on \(n\), \(\nu\), \(D\) and \(\Lambda\), while for the neck region it only depends on \(n\), and \(\nu\).