We prove the spacetime positive mass theorem in dimensions less than eight. This theorem asserts that for any asymptotically flat initial data set that satisfies the dominant energy condition, the inequality E>=|P| holds, where (E, P) is the ADM energy-momentum vector. Previously, this theorem was only known for spin manifolds [38]. Our approach is a modification of the minimal hypersurface technique that was used by the last named author and S.-T. Yau to establish the time-symmetric case of this theorem [30, 27]. Instead of minimal hypersurfaces, we use marginally outer trapped hypersurfaces (MOTS) whose existence is guaranteed by earlier work of the first named author [14]. An important part of our proof is to introduce an appropriate substitute for the area functional that is used in the time-symmetric case to single out certain minimal hypersurfaces. We also establish a density theorem of independent interest and use it to reduce the general case of the spacetime positive mass theorem to the special case of initial data that has harmonic asymptotics and satisfies the strict dominant energy condition.

We give a description of the completion of the manifold of all smooth Riemannian metrics on a fixed smooth, closed, finitedimensional, orientable manifold with respect to a natural metric called the L2 metric. The primary motivation for studying this problem comes from Teichm¨uller theory, where similar considerations lead to a completion of the well-known Weil-Petersson metric. We give an application of the main theorem to the completions of Teichm¨uller space with respect to a class of metrics that generalize the Weil-Petersson metric.

An expansion is developed for the Weil-Petersson Riemann curvature tensor in the thin region of the Teichm¨uller and moduli spaces. The tensor is evaluated on the gradients of geodesiclengths for disjoint geodesics. A precise lower bound for sectional curvature in terms of the surface systole is presented. The curvature tensor expansion is applied to establish continuity properties at the frontier strata of the augmented Teichm¨uller space. The curvature tensor has the asymptotic product structure already observed for the metric and covariant derivative. The product structure is combined with the earlier negative sectional curvature results to establish a classification of asymptotic flats. Furthermore, tangent subspaces of more than half the dimension of Teichm¨uller space contain sections with a definite amount of negative curvature. Proofs combine estimates for uniformization group exponential-distance sums and potential theory bounds.

Recently Freed and Hopkins [11] proved that there is no parity anomaly in M-theory on pin+ manifolds in the low-energy field theory approximation, and they also developed an algebraic theory of cubic forms. Earlier Witten [33] proved the anomaly cancellation for spin manifolds by introducing the E8-bundle technique. Motivated by the cubic forms and the anomaly cancellation formulas of Witten-Freed-Hopkins, we give some new cubic forms on spin, spinc, spinω2 and orientable 12- manifolds respectively. We relate them to η-invariants when the manifolds are with boundary, and mod 2 indices on 10 dimensional characteristic submanifolds when the manifolds are spinc or spinω2 . Our method of producing these cubic forms is a combination of (generalized) Witten classes and the character of the basic representation of affine E8.

Motivated by the recent work of Wu and Yau on the ampleness of canonical line bundle for compact K\"ahler manifolds with negative holomorphic sectional curvature, we introduce a new curvature notion called {\em real bisectional curvature} for Hermitian manifolds. When the metric is K\"ahler, this is just the holomorphic sectional curvature $H$, and when the metric is non-K\"ahler, it is slightly stronger than $H$. We classify compact Hermitian manifolds with constant non-zero real bisectional curvature, and also slightly extend Wu-Yau's theorem to the Hermitian case. The underlying reason for the extension is that the Schwarz lemma of Wu-Yau works the same when the target metric is only Hermitian but has nonpositive real bisectional curvature.