Consider a compact K¨ahler manifold Mm with Ricci curvature lower bound RicM ≥ −2 (m + 1) . Assume that its universal cover fM has maximal bottom of spectrum 1 fM = m2. Then we prove that fM is isometric to the complex hyperbolic space CHm.

We study the spectral geometric properties of the scalar Laplace–Beltrami operator associated to the Weil–Petersson metric $g_{WP}$ on $\mathcal{M}_{\gamma}$ , the Riemann moduli space of surfaces of genus  $\gamma>1$. This space has a singular compactification with respect to $g_{WP}$, and this metric has crossing cusp-edge singularities along a finite collection of simple normal crossing divisors. We prove first that the scalar Laplacian is essentially self-adjoint, which then implies that its spectrum is discrete.

In this article, we describe various geometries on Riemannian manifolds via a unified approach using normed division algebras and vector cross products. They include K¨ahler geometry, Calabi-Yau geometry, hyperk¨ahler geometry, G2-geometry and geometry of Riemannian symmetric spaces.

Let U be a connected non-singular quasi-projective variety and f : A → U a family of abelian varieties of dimension g. Suppose that the induced map U → Ag is generically finite and there is a compactification Y with complement S = Y \U a normal crossing divisor such that Ω1 Y (log S) is nef and ωY (S) is ample with respect to U. We characterize whether U is a Shimura variety by numerical data attached to the variation of Hodge structures, rather than by properties of the map U →Ag or by the existence of CM points. More precisely, we show that f : A → U is a Kuga fibre space, if and only if two conditions hold. First, each irreducible local subsystem V of R1f∗CA is either unitary or satisfies the Arakelov equality. Second, for each factor M in the universal cover of U whose tangent bundle behaves like that of a complex ball, an iterated Kodaira-Spencer map associated with V has minimal possible length in the direction of M. If in addition f : A → U is rigid, it is a connected Shimura subvariety of Ag of Hodge type.

We introduce singular Ricci flows, which are Ricci flow spacetimes subject to certain asymptotic conditions. These provide a solution to the long-standing problem of finding a good notion of Ricci flow through singularities, in the 3-dimensional case. We prove that Ricci flow with surgery, starting from a fixed initial condition, subconverges to a singular Ricci flow as the surgery parameter tends to zero. We establish a number of geometric and analytical properties of singular Ricci flows.