Notes on Gromov's systolic estimate (Q884774)

The systole of a Riemannian manifold \((M,g)\) is defined to be the smallest length of a non-contractible curve in \(M\). A Riemannian manifold is aspherical if \(\pi_i(M)=0\) for all \(i\geqslant 2\). \textit{M. Gromov} in his paper ``Filling Riemannian manifolds'' [J. Differ. Geom. 18, 1--147 (1983; Zbl 0515.53037)] proved the following theorem: For any \(n\)-dimensional closed aspherical Riemannian manifold \((M,g)\), the systole is bounded in terms of the volume by the following formula \[ \text{Systole}(M,g)\leqslant C(n)\,\text{Volume}(M,g)^{1/n}. \] The goal of the reviewed paper is to make the results of Gromov's paper and proofs accessible to more people. In order to prove the theorem Gromov invented a new geometric invariant called the filling radius. In the reviewed paper the author using the filling radius gives the proof of the above mentioned theorem in two steps. First, he shows that if \(M\) is a closed aspherical manifold, then the systole of \((M,g)\) is bounded in terms of the filling radius by the formula \(\text{Systole}(M,g)\leqslant 6\, \text{Fill\,Rad}(M,g)\). Next, the author proves that for any closed manifold \(M\), the filling radius is bounded in terms of the volume by the formula \(\text{Fill\,Rad}(M,g)\leqslant C(n)\,\text{Volume}(M,g)^{1/n}\).