We study integral and pointwise bounds on the curvature of gradient shrinking Ricci solitons. As applications, we discuss gap and compactness results for gradient shrinkers.

We classify compact anti-self-dual Hermitian surfaces and compact four-dimensional conformally flat manifolds for which the group of orientation preserving conformal transformations contains a two-dimensional torus. As a corollary, we derive a topological classification of compact self-dual manifolds for which the group of conformal transformations contains a two-dimensional torus.

We define the notion of a Ricci curvature lower bound for parametrized statistical models. Following the seminal ideas of Lott–Sturm–Villani, we define this notion based on the geodesic convexity of the Kullback–Leibler divergence in a Wasserstein statistical manifold, that is, a manifold of probability distributions endowed with a Wasserstein metric tensor structure. Within these definitions, which are based on Fisher information matrix and Wasserstein Christoffel symbols, the Ricci curvature is related to both, information geometry and Wasserstein geometry. These definitions allow us to formulate bounds on the convergence rate of Wasserstein gradient flows and information functional inequalities in parameter space. We discuss examples of Ricci curvature lower bounds and convergence rates in exponential family models.

In this note, we prove the sharp Davies-Gaffney-Grigor’yan lemma for minimal heat kernels on graphs.

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