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Geometry and Topology Seminar

Friday, October 30, 2020
3:00pm to 4:00pm
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Online Event
Generalized soap bubbles and the topology of manifolds with positive scalar curvature
Chao Li, Department of Mathematics, Princeton University,

It has been a classical question which manifolds admit Riemannian metrics with positive scalar curvature. I will present some recent progress on this question, ruling out positive scalar curvature on closed aspherical manifolds of dimensions 4 and 5 (as conjectured by Schoen-Yau and by Gromov), as well as complete metrics of positive scalar curvature on an arbitrary manifold connect sum with a torus. Applications include a Schoen-Yau Liouville theorem for all locally conformally flat manifolds. The proofs of these results are based on analyzing generalized soap bubbles - surfaces that are stable solutions to the prescribed mean curvature problem. This talk is based on joint work with O. Chodosh.

For more information, please contact Math Department by phone at 626-395-4335 or by email at [email protected] or visit https://sites.google.com/site/caltechgtseminar/home.