Let .. be the fundamental group of a compact riemannian manifold X of sectional curvature K ≤ .1 and dimension n ≥ 3. We suppose that .. = A .C B is the free product of its subgroups A and B amalgamated over the subgroup C. We prove that the critical exponent δ(C) of C satisfies δ(C) ≥ n.2. The equality occurs if and only if there exist an embedded compact hypersurface Y . X, totally geodesic, of constant sectional curvature .1, whose fundamental group is C and which separates X in two connected components whose fundamental groups are A and B respectively. Similar results hold if .. is an HNN extension, or more generally if .. acts on a simplicial tree without fixed point.

We show that the space of negatively curved metrics of a closed negatively curved Riemannian n-manifold, n  10, is highly nonconnected.

We prove the mean curvature flow of the graph of a symplectomorphism between Riemann surfaces converges smoothly as time approaches infinity.

We further develop the asymptotic analytic approach to the study of scattering diagrams. We do so by analyzing the asymptotic behavior of Maurer--Cartan elements of a differential graded Lie algebra constructed from a (not-necessarily tropical) monoid-graded Lie algebra. In this framework, we give alternative differential geometric proofs of the consistent completion of scattering diagrams, originally proved by Kontsevich--Soibelman, Gross--Siebert and Bridgeland. We also give a geometric interpretation of theta functions and their wall-crossing. In the tropical setting, we interpret Maurer--Cartan elements, and therefore consistent scattering diagrams, in terms of the refined counting of tropical disks. We also describe theta functions, in both their tropical and Hall algebraic settings, in terms of distinguished flat sections of the Maurer--Cartan-deformed differential. In particular, this allows us to give a combinatorial description of Hall algebra theta functions for acyclic quivers with non-degenerate skew-symmetrized Euler forms.

Let (M, g) be a complete 3-dimensional asymptotically flat manifold with everywhere positive scalar curvature. We prove that, given a compact subset K  M, all volume preserving stable constant mean curvature surfaces of sufficiently large area will avoid K. This complements the results of G. Huisken and S.-T. Yau [17] and of J. Qing and G. Tian [26] on the uniqueness of large volume preserving stable constant mean curvature spheres in initial data sets that are asymptotically close to Schwarzschild with mass m > 0. The analysis in [17] and [26] takes place in the asymptotic regime of M. Here we adapt ideas from the minimal surface proof of the positive mass theorem [32] by R. Schoen and S.-T. Yau and develop geometric properties of volume preserving stable constant mean curvature surfaces to handle surfaces that run through the part of M that is far from Euclidean.