We show that the notion of hyperconvex representation due to F. Labourie gives a geometric characterization of the representations of a surface group in PSLn(R) that belong to the Hitchin component.

Given a closed Riemannian manifold, we show how to close an orbit of the geodesic flow by a small perturbation of the metric in the C1 topology.

We prove the Poisson geometric version of the Local Reeb Stability (from foliation theory) and of the Slice Theorem (from equivariant geometry), which is also a generalization of Conn’s linearization theorem.

We construct many new non-liftable three-dimensional Calabi–Yau spaces in positive characteristic. The technique relies on lifting a nodal model to a smooth rigid Calabi–Yau space over some number field as introduced by one of us jointily with D. van Straten.

We determine a global structure of the moduli space of self-dual metrics on 3CP2 satisfying the following three properties: (i) the scalar curvature is of positive type, (ii) they admit a non-trivial Killing field, (iii) they are not conformal to the LeBrun’s self- dual metrics based on the ‘hyperbolic ansatz’. We prove that the moduli space of these metrics is isomorphic to an orbifold R3/G, where G is an involution of R3 having two-dimensional fixed locus. In particular, the moduli space is non-empty and connected. We also remark that Joyce’s self-dual metrics with torus symmetry appear as a limit of our self-dual metrics. Our proof of the result is based on the twistor theory. We first determine a defining equation of a projective model of the twistor space of the metric, and then prove that the projective model is always birational to a twistor space, by determining the family of twistor lines. In determining them, a key role is played by a classical result in algebraic geometry that a smooth plane quartic always possesses twenty-eight bitangents.