For Riemannian manifolds with a measure (M, g, e.fdvolg) we prove mean curvature and volume comparison results when the亣- Bakry-Emery Ricci tensor is bounded from below and f or |f| is bounded, generalizing the classical ones (i.e. when f is constant). This leads to extensions of many theorems for Ricci curvature bounded below to the Bakry-Emery Ricci tensor. In particular, we give extensions of all of the major comparison theorems when f is bounded. Simple examples show the bound on f is necessary for these results.

In this paper we provide a detailed proof of the second variation formula, essentially due to Richard Hamilton, Tom Ilmanen and the first author, for Perelman’s ν-entropy. In particular, we correct an error in the stability operator stated in Theorem 6.3 of [2]. Moreover, we obtain a necessary condition for linearly stable shrinkers in terms of the least eigenvalue and its multiplicity of certain Lichnerowicz type operator associated to the second variation.

We show that Norbury’s McShane identity for nonorientable cusped hyperbolic surfaces N generalizes to quasifuchsian representations of π1(N) as well as pseudo-Anosov mapping Klein bottles with singular fibers given by N.

For almost all Riemannian metrics (in the C1 Baire sense) on a closed manifold M^{n+1}, 3 \leq n + 1 \leq 7, we prove that there is a sequence of closed, smooth, embedded, connected minimal hypersurfaces that is equidistributed in M. This gives a quantitative version of a result by Irie and the first two authors, that established density of minimal hypersurfaces for generic metrics. The main tool is the Weyl Law for the Volume Spectrum proven by Liokumovich and the first two authors .

In this paper, we classify n-dimensional (n ≥ 3) complete non-compact locally conformally flat gradient steady solitons. In particular, we prove that a complete noncompact nonflat locally conformally flat gradient steady Ricci soliton is, up to scaling, the Bryant soliton.