THE MAIN PURPOSE of this paper is to give a simple and unified new proof of the Witten rigidity theorems, which were conjectured by Witten and first proved by Taubes [25], Bott-Taubes [S], Hirzebruch Cl23 and Krichever [15]. Our proof shows that the modular invariance, which is the intrinsic symmetry of elliptic genera, actually implies their rigidity. Some new properties of elliptic genera and their relationships with theta-functions are also discussed. We remark that our proof makes essential uses of the new feature of loop groups and loop spaces, the modular invariance. We note that, with the help of the modular group, we can catch the topological information on loop space by simply working on finite-dimensional manifold. By developing this idea further, in [21] we have proved the rigidity of the Dirac operator on loop space twisted by higher-level loop group representations, while the Witten ridigity theorems are the special cases of level 1. Many topological vanishing theorems are also derived in [21] by refining the argument in this paper, especially an &-vanishing theorem for loop space. In [19] modular invariance is used again to establish a general miraculous cancellation formula, relating the Hirzebruch L-form to certain twisted &-forms, which has many interesting topological results as consequences. These results were announced in [20].

We briefly survey our recent results about the Mumford goodness of several canonical metrics on the moduli spaces of Riemann surfaces, including the Weil-Petersson metric, the Ricci metric, the Perturbed Ricci metric and the Kahler-Einstein metric. We prove the dual Nakano negativity of the Weil-Petersson metric. As applications of these results we deduce certain important results about the <i>L</i> ²-cohomology groups of the logarithmic tangent bundle over the compactified moduli spaces.

Guy Bonneau has kindly pointed out two errors in [1]. The first is that the manifolds M (k) and M (k)/Z2 do not admit U (2)-invariant Einstein-Weyl structures for k 2; thus the last four entries in Table 4 (page 422) do not occur. The error is on pages 429430. The analysis there is correct, except that the critical line to consider in Lemma 7.5 and the subsequent calculation is = , instead of = 2/k, because of the constraint (D, ](equivalently, &gt; ) occurring in the definition of . On this line, one has

In this paper, we solve a problem of Kobayashi posed in (Complex Finsler vector bundles, American Mathematical Society, Providence, 1996) by introducing a Donaldson type functional on the space F + ( E ) of strongly pseudo-convex complex Finsler metrics on <i>E</i>a holomorphic vector bundle over a closed Khler manifold <i>M</i>. This Donaldson type functional is a generalization in the complex Finsler geometry setting of the original Donaldson functional and has FinslerEinstein metrics on <i>E</i> as its only critical points, at which this functional attains the absolute minimum.

All orientable metric surfaces are Riemann surfaces and admit global conformal parameterizations. Riemann surface structure is a fundamental structure and governs many natural physical phenomena, such as heat diffusion and electro-magnetic fields on the surface. A good parameterization is crucial for simulation and visualization. This paper provides an explicit method for finding optimal global conformal parameterizations of arbitrary surfaces. It relies on certain holomorphic differential forms and conformal mappings from differential geometry and Riemann surface theories. Algorithms are developed to modify topology, locate zero points, and determine cohomology types of differential forms. The implementation is based on a finite dimensional optimization method. The optimal parameterization is intrinsic to the geometry, preserves angular structure, and can play an important role in various applications