In this paper, we study the question of which compact manifolds admit a metric with positive scalar curvature. Scalar curvature is perhaps the weakest invariant among all the well-known invariants constructed from the curvature tensor. It measures the deviation of the Riemannian volume of the geodesic ball from the euclidean volume of the geodesic ball. As a result, it does not tell us much of the behavior of the geodesics in the manifold. Therefore it was remarkable that in 1963, Lichnerowicz [i] was able to prove the theorem that on a compact spin manifold with positive scalar curvature, there is no harmonic spinor. Applying

For a sub-Riemannian manifold provided with a smooth volume, we relate the small-time asymptotics of the heat kernel at a point y of the cut locus from x with roughly “how much” y is conjugate to x. This is done under the hypothesis that all minimizers connecting x to y are strongly normal, i.e. all pieces of the trajectory are not abnormal. Our result is a refinement of the one of Leandre 4t log pt(x, y) ! −d2(x, y) for t ! 0, in which only the leading exponential term is detected. Our results are obtained by extending an idea of Molchanov from the Riemannian to the sub-Riemannian case, and some details we get appear to be new even in the Riemannian context. These results permit us to obtain properties of the sub-Riemannian distance starting from those of the heat kernel and vice versa. For the Grushin plane endowed with the Euclidean volume, we get the expansion pt(x, y)  t−5/4 exp(−d2(x, y)/4t) where y is reached from a - Riemannian point x by a minimizing geodesic which is conjugate at y.

We introduce the notion of symplectic flatness for connections and fiber bundles over symplectic manifolds. Given an $A_\infty$-algebra, we present a flatness condition that enables the twisting of the differential complex associated with the $A_\infty$-algebra. The symplectic flatness condition arises from twisting the $A_\infty$-algebra of differential forms constructed by Tsai, Tseng and Yau. When the symplectic manifold is equipped with a compatible metric, the symplectic flat connections represent a special subclass of Yang-Mills connections. We further study the cohomologies of the twisted differential complex and give a simple vanishing theorem for them.

In this paper, we show that any compact K\"ahler manifold homotopic to a compact Riemannian manifold with negative sectional curvature admits a K\"ahler-Einstein metric of general type. Moreover, we prove that, on a compact symplectic manifold $X$ homotopic to a compact Riemannian manifold with negative sectional curvature, for any almost complex structure $J$ compatible with the symplectic form, there is no non-constant $J$-holomorphic entire curve $f:\C\> X$.

We exhibit the first examples of hyperbolic three-manifolds for which the Seiberg-Witten equations do not admit any irreducible solution. Our approach relies on hyperbolic geometry in an essential way; it combines an explicit upper bound for the first eigenvalue on coexact 1-forms λ_1^* on rational homology spheres which admit irreducible solutions together with a version of the Selberg trace formula relating the spectrum of the Laplacian on coexact 1-forms with the volume and complex length spectrum of a hyperbolic three-manifold. Using these relationships, we also provide precise numerical bounds on λ_1^* for several hyperbolic rational homology spheres.