Let X be a compact connected strongly pseudoconvex CR manifold of real dimension 2n . 1 in CN. It has been an interesting question to find an intrinsic smoothness criteria for the complex Plateau problem. For n  3 and N = n+1, Yau found a necessary and sufficient condition for the interior regularity of the HarveyLawson solution to the complex Plateau problem by means of Kohn–Rossi cohomology groups on X in 1981. For n = 2 and N  n + 1, the problem has been open for over 30 years. In this paper we introduce a new CR invariant g(1,1)(X) of X. The vanishing of this invariant will give the interior regularity of the Harvey–Lawson solution up to normalization. In the case n = 2 and N = 3, the vanishing of this invariant is enough to give the interior regularity.

We show that for every simple closed curve , the extremal length and the hyperbolic length of  are quasi-convex functions along any Teichm¨uller geodesic. As a corollary, we conclude that, in Teichm¨uller space equipped with the Teichm¨uller metric, balls are quasi-convex.

In this follow-up of our earlier two works D (11.1)(arXiv: 1406.0929 [math. DG]) and D (11.2)(arXiv: 1412.0771 [hep-th]) in the D-project, we study further the notion of adifferentiable map from an Azumaya/matrix manifold to a real manifold'. A conjecture is made that the notion of differentiable maps from Azumaya/matrix manifolds as defined in D (11.1) is equivalent to one defined through the contravariant ring-homomorphisms alone. A proof of this conjecture for the smooth (ie C^{\infty} ) case is given in this note. Thus, at least in the smooth case, our setting for D-branes in the realm of differential geometry is completely parallel to that in the realm of algebraic geometry, cf.\arXiv: 0709.1515 [math. AG] and arXiv: 0809.2121 [math. AG]. A related conjecture on such maps to C^{\infty} , as a C^{\infty} -manifold, and its proof in the C^{\infty} case is also given. As a by-product, a conjecture on a division lemma in the finitely differentiable case that generalizes the division lemma in the smooth case from Malgrange is given in the end, as well as other comments on the conjectures in the general C^{\infty} case. We remark that there are similar conjectures in general and theorems in the smooth case for the fermionic/super generalization of the notion.

Making use of the extended flux homomorphism defined in [13] on the group Symp§g of symplectomorphisms of a closed ori- ented surface §g of genus g ≥ 2, we introduce new characteristic classes of foliated surface bundles with symplectic, equivalently area-preserving, total holonomy. These characteristic classes are stable with respect to g and we show that they are highly non- trivial. We also prove that the second homology of the group Ham§g of Hamiltonian symplectomorphisms of §g, equipped with the discrete topology, is very large for all g ≥ 2.

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.