We prove that the higher harmonic signature of an even dimensional oriented Riemannian foliation F of a compact Riemannian manifold M with coefficients in a leafwise U(p, q)-flat complex bundle is a leafwise homotopy invariant. We also prove the leafwise homotopy invariance of the twisted higher Betti classes. Consequences for the Novikov conjecture for foliations and for groups are investigated.

In this paper we develop methods to extend the minimal hypersurface approach to positive scalar curvature problems to all dimensions. This includes a proof of the positive mass theorem in all dimensions without a spin assumption. It also includes statements about the structure of compact manifolds of positive scalar curvature extending the work of\cite {sy1} to all dimensions. The technical work in this paper is to construct minimal slicings and associated weight functions in the presence of small singular sets and to show that the singular sets do not become too large in the lower dimensional slices. It is shown that the singular set in any slice is a closed set with Hausdorff codimension at least three. In particular for arguments which involve slicing down to dimension 1 or 1 the method is successful. The arguments can be viewed as an extension of the minimal hypersurface regularity theory to this setting of minimal slicings.

We apply various topological methods to distinguish connected components of moduli spaces of complete Riemannian metrics of nonnegative sectional curvature on open manifolds. The new geometric ingredient is that souls of nearby nonnegatively curved metrics are ambiently isotopic.

Let M be a closed surface diffeomorphic to S2 endowed with a Riemannian metric. Denote the diameter of M by d. We prove that for every x 2 M and every positive integer k there exist k distinct geodesic loops based at x of length  20kd.

In this paper, we illustrate the wave character of the metrics and curvatures of manifolds and introduce a new understanding toolthe hyperbolic geometric flow. This kind of flow is new and very natural to understand certain wave phenomena in the nature as well as the geometry of manifolds. It possesses many interesting properties from both mathematics and physics. Several applications of this method have been found.