Let G be a torsion-free hyperbolic group and let n  6 be an integer. We prove that G is the fundamental group of a closed aspherical manifold if the boundary of G is homeomorphic to an (n − 1)-dimensional sphere.

Based on large N Chern-Simons/topological string duality, in a series of papers [36, 21, 19], Labastida, Marino, Ooguri, and Vafa conjectured certain remarkable new algebraic structure of link invariants and the existence of infinite series of new integer invariants. In this paper, we provide a proof of this conjecture. Moreover, we also show these new integer invariants vanish at large genera.

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We construct a Kruskal-Szekeres-type analytic extension of the Emparan-Reall black ring, and investigate its geometry. We prove that the extension is maximal, globally hyperbolic, and unique within a natural class of extensions. The key to those results is the proof that causal geodesics are either complete, or approach a singular boundary in finite affine time. Alternative maximal analytic extensions are also constructed.

We study the algebraic dimension a(X) of a compact hyperk ¨ahler manifold of dimension 2n. We show that a(X) is at most n unless X is projective. If a compact K¨ahler manifold with algebraic dimension 0 and Kodaira dimension 0 has a minimal model, then only the values 0, n and 2n are possible. In case of middle dimension, the algebraic reduction is holomorphic Lagrangian. If n = 2, then - without any assumptions - the algebraic dimension only takes the values 0, 2 and 4. The paper also gives structure results for ”generalised hyperk¨ahler” manifolds and studies nef lines bundles.

We consider compact submanifolds of dimension n  2 in Rn+k, with nonzero mean curvature vector everywhere, and such that the full norm of the second fundamental form is bounded by a fixed multiple (depending on n) of the length of the mean curvature vector at every point. We prove that the mean curvature flow deforms such a submanifold to a point in finite time, and that the solution is asymptotic to a shrinking sphere in some (n + 1)- dimensional affine subspace of Rn+k.

We study the Plateau Problem of finding an area minimizing disk bounding a given Jordan curve in Alexandrov spaces with curvature ≥ κ. These are complete metric spaces with a lower curvature bound given in terms of triangle comparison. Imposing an additional condition that is satisfied by all Alexandrov spaces according to a conjecture of Perel’man, we develop a harmonic map theory from two dimensional domains into these spaces. In particular, we show that the solution to the Dirichlet problem from a disk is H¨older continuous in the interior and continuous up to the boundary. Using this theory, we solve the Plateau Problem in this setting generalizing classical results in Euclidean space (due to J. Douglas and T. Rado) and in Riemannian manifolds (due to C.B. Morrey).

Given a negatively curved geodesic metric space M, we study the almost sure asymptotic penetration behavior of (locally) geodesic lines of M into small neighborhoods of points, of closed geodesics, and of other compact (locally) convex subsets of M. We prove Khintchine-type and logarithm law-type results for the spiraling of geodesic lines around these objets. As a consequence in the tree setting, we obtain Diophantine approximation results of elements of non-archimedian local fields by quadratic irrational ones.

We give new examples of hyperbolic and relatively hyperbolic groups of cohomological dimension d for all d ≥ 4 (see Theorem 2.13). These examples result from applying CAT(0)/CAT(−1) filling constructions (based on singular doubly warped products) to finite volume hyperbolic manifolds with toral cusps. The groups obtained have a number of interesting properties, which are established by analyzing their boundaries at infinity by a kind of Morse-theoretic technique, related to but distinct from ordinary and combinatorial Morse theory (see Section 5).

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