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.

The chains studied in this paper generalize Chern–Moser chains for CR structures. They form a distinguished family of one dimensional submanifolds in manifolds endowed with a parabolic contact structure. Both the parabolic contact structure and the system of chains can be equivalently encoded as Cartan geometries (of different types). The aim of this paper is to study the relation between these two Cartan geometries for Lagrangean contact structures and partially integrable almost CR structures. We develop a general method for extending Cartan geometries which generalizes the Cartan geometry interpretation of Fefferman’s construction of a conformal structure associated to a CR structure. For the two structures in question, we show that the Cartan geometry associated to the family of chains can be obtained in that way if and only if the original parabolic contact structure is torsion free. In particular, the procedure works exactly on the subclass of (integrable) CR structures. This tight relation between the two Cartan geometries leads to an explicit description of the Cartan curvature associated to the family of chains. On the one hand, this shows that the homogeneous models for the two parabolic contact structures give rise to examples of non–flat path geometries with large automorphism groups. On the other hand, we show that one may (almost) reconstruct the underlying torsion free parabolic contact structure from the Cartan curvature associated to the chains. In particular, this leads to a very conceptual proof of the fact that chain preserving contact diffeomorphisms are either isomorphisms or antiisomorphisms of parabolic contact structures.

Strongly pseudoconvex CR manifolds are boundaries of Stein varieties with isolated normal singularities.We prove that any nonconstant CR morphism between two (2n.1)-dimensional strongly pseudoconvex CR manifolds lying in an n-dimensional Stein variety with isolated singularities are necessarily a CR biholomorphism. As a corollary, we prove that any nonconstant self map of (2n . 1)-dimensional strongly pseudoconvex CR manifold is a CR automorphism. We also prove that a finite ′etale covering map between two resolutions of isolated normal singularities must be an isomorphism.

We show that the attenuated geodesic ray transform on two dimensional simple surfaces is injective. Moreover, we give a stability estimate and develop a reconstruction procedure.

We exhibit a transformation taking special Lagrangian submanifolds of a Calabi-Yau together with local systems to vector bundles over the mirror manifold with connections obeying deformed Hermitian-Yang-Mills equations. That is, the transformation relates supersymmetric A- and Bcycles. In this paper, we assume that the mirror pair are dual torus fibrations with flat tori and that the A-cycle is a section. We also show that this transformation preserves the (holomorphic) Chern-Simons functional for all connections. Furthermore, on corresponding moduli spaces of supersymmetric cycles it identifies the graded tangent spaces and the holomorphic m-forms. In particular, we verify Vafa’s mirror conjecture with bundles in this special case.