Smooth valuations on manifolds are studied by establishing a link with the Rumin-de Rham complex of the co-sphere bundle. Several operations on differential forms induce operations on smooth valuations: signature operator, Rumin-Laplace operator, Euler-Verdier involution and derivation operator. As an application, Alesker’s Hard Lefschetz Theorem for even translation invariant valuations on a finite-dimensional Euclidean space is generalized to all translation invariant valuations. The proof uses K¨ahler identities, the Rumin-de Rham complex and spectral geometry.

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Continuing our previous work (arXiv:1509.07981v1), we derive another global gradient estimate for positive functions, particularly for positive solutions to the heat equation on finite or locally finite graphs. In general, the gradient estimate in the present paper is independent of our previous one. As applications, it can be used to get an upper bound and a lower bound of the heat kernel on locally finite graphs. These global gradient estimates can be compared with the Li–Yau inequality on graphs contributed by Bauer et al. [J. Differential Geom., 99, 359–409 (2015)]. In many topics, such as eigenvalue estimate and heat kernel estimate (not including the Liouville type theorems), replacing the Li–Yau inequality by the global gradient estimate, we can get similar results.

An inequality relating the Euler characteristic, the signature and the <i>L</i>₂-norm of the curvature of the bundle of densities is proved for a four-dimensional compact Einstein-Weyl manifold. This generalises the Hitchin-Thorpe inequality for Einstein manifolds. The case where equality occurs is discussed and related to Hitchin's classification of Ricci-flat self-dual four-manifolds and to the recent work of Gauduchon on closed non-exact Einstein-Weyl geometries.

Consider a compact K¨ahler manifold Mm with Ricci curvature lower bound RicM ≥ −2 (m + 1) . Assume that its universal cover fM has maximal bottom of spectrum 1 fM = m2. Then we prove that fM is isometric to the complex hyperbolic space CHm.