Metric Geometry and Geometric Analysis (Oxford, United Kingdom): "Lecture & Mini-Course 1: "Geometric Inequalities: Homotopies, Fillings and Geodesics""
Presenter
July 13, 2022
Abstract
We will discuss various geometric inequalities motivated by famous existence theorems of various minimal objects in differential geometry proven by topological methods. Let M be a closed Riemannian manifold. Quantitative versions of such theorems as the existence of a periodic geodesic on M due to A. Fet and L. Lusternik, the existence of infinitely many geodesics between an arbitrary pair of points on M (J. P. Serve) and the existence of three simple closed geodesics ona Riemannian 2-sphere (L. Lusternik and L. Schnirelmann) will be presented.
We will begin with a discussion of surfaces, next explore how the results for surfaces can be generalized to curvature-free estimates on higher dimensional manifolds. We will next discuss geometric inequalities that involve curvature bounds. If time permits, we will also talk about the case of non-compact complete manifolds with some geometric constraints, like finite volume.
In terms of the prerequisites, in addition to Do Carmo's Riemannian Geometry, I would expect students to know some fundamentals of Algebraic Topology, such as Homology and Homotopy Groups, which can be found in Hatcher's textbook.