This chapter discusses some recent results by Richard Schoen and Shing-Tung Yau on the structure of manifolds with positive scalar curvature. The chapter presents theorems which are felt to provide a more complete picture of manifolds with positive scalar curvature: (1) let M be a compact four-dimensional manifold with positive scalar curvature. Then there exists no continuous map with non-zero degree onto a compact K(,1). (2) Let M be n-dimensional complete manifold with non-negative scalar curvature. Then any conformed immersion of M into Sⁿ is one to one. In particular, any complete conformally flat manifold with non-negative scalar curvature is the quotient of a domain in Sⁿ by a discrete subgroup of the conformal group. (3.) Let M be a compact manifold whose fundamental group is not of exponential growth. Then unless M is covered by Sⁿ, Sⁿ¹ x S¹ or the torus, M admits no

We develop a Floer theoretical gluing technique and apply it to deal with the most generic singular ber in the SYZ program, namely the product of a torus with the immersed two-sphere with a single nodal self-intersection. As an application, we construct immersed Lagrangians in Gr(2;Cn) and OG(1;C5) and derive their SYZ mirrors. It recovers the Lie theoretical mirrors constructed by Rietsch. It also gives an eective way to compute stable disks (with non-trivial obstructions) bounded by immersed Lagrangians.

IT IS well-known that if a compact group acts differentiably on a differentiable manifold, then this group must preserve some Riemannian metric on this manifold. From this point of view, we shall discuss certain facts about group actions on manifolds. In 01, we study the group of isometries of a non-compact manifold. We discover that if the group is non-compact, the manifold has to split as a product of the Euclidean space and another manifold. This gives some information on problem 33 of [5]. It also gives some information on the group of biholomorphic transformations of a complex manifold whose Bergman metric is not trivial. Then we find a topological obstruction for a non-compact manifold to admit an infinite group to act freely and properly discontinuously. Namely, we prove that the natural map from the de Rham cohomology group with compact support to the de Rham cohomology group without compact support is trivial when the first group has finite dimension. In $2, we obtain some topological obstructions for group actions by looking at the complex of invariant differential forms. We prove, for example, that if a compact group acts on a compact manifold with non-zero Euler number, then wI A*** A ut+,= 0 for all closed invariant l-forms wl,..., Ok+ 1 with k 2 the codimension of the principle orbit.(It may be interesting to note that the vanishing is on the form level so that any secondary obstruction should also vanish.) We also prove a topological version of this theorem for circle actions. An interesting corollary is that if a manifold is the connected sum of a torus and a compact manifold with Euler number# 2, then it does not admit any circle actions

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In this paper we discuss the change in contact structures as their supporting open book decompositions have their binding components cabled. To facilitate this and applications we define the notion of a rational open book decomposition that generalizes the standard notion of open book decomposition and allows one to more easily study surgeries on transverse knots. As a corollary to our investigation we are able to show there are Stein fillable contact structures supported by open books whose monodromies cannot be written as a product of positive Dehn twists. We also exhibit several monoids in the mapping class group of a surface that have contact geometric significance.