Given an SO(3)-bundle with connection, the associated twosphere bundle carries a natural closed 2-form. Asking that this be symplectic gives a curvature inequality first considered by Reznikov [34]. We study this inequality in the case when the base has dimension four, with three main aims. Firstly, we use this approach to construct symplectic six-manifolds with c1 = 0 which are never K¨ahler; e.g., we produce such manifolds with b1 = 0 = b3 and also with c2 · [ω] < 0, answering questions posed by Smith–Thomas–Yau [37]. Examples come from Riemannian geometry, via the Levi–Civita connection on +. The underlying six-manifold is then the twistor space and often the symplectic structure tames the Eells–Salamon twistor almost complex structure. Our second aim is to exploit this to deduce new results about minimal surfaces: if a certain curvature inequality holds, it follows that the space of minimal surfaces (with fixed topological invariants) is compactifiable; the minimal surfaces must also satisfy an adjunction inequality, unifying and generalising results of Chen–Tian [6]. One metric satisfying the curvature inequality is hyperbolic four-space H4. Our final aim is to show that the corresponding symplectic manifold is symplectomorphic to the small resolution of the conifold xw −yz = 0 in C4. We explain how this fits into a hyperbolic description of the conifold transition, with isometries of H4 acting symplectomorphically on the resolution and isometries of H3 acting biholomorphically on the smoothing.

Let $M^n$ be a complete noncompact K\"ahler manifold with nonnegative bisectional curvature and maximal volume growth, we prove that $M$ is biholomorphic to $\mathbb{C}^n$. This confirms the uniformization conjecture of Yau under the assumption $M$ has maximal volume growth.

We present an alternate description of the Ozsv´ath-Szab´o contact class in Heegaard Floer homology. Using our contact class, we prove that if a contact structure (M, ) has an adapted open book decomposition whose page S is a once-punctured torus, then the monodromy is right-veering if and only if the contact structure is tight.

By using certain idea developed in minimal submanifold theory we study rigidity problem for self-shrinkers in the present paper. We prove rigidity results for the squared norm of the second fundamental form of self-shrinkers, either under point-wise conditions or under integral conditions.

In this article we give necessary and sufficient conditions for an irreducible K¨ahler C-space with b2 = 1 to have nonnegative or positive quadratic bisectional curvature, assuming the space is not Hermitian symmetric. In the cases of the five exceptional Lie groups E6,E7,E8, F4,G2, the computer package MAPLE is used to assist our calculations. The results are related to two conjectures of Li-Wu-Zheng.