Let G be a torsion-free hyperbolic group and let n  6 be an integer. We prove that G is the fundamental group of a closed aspherical manifold if the boundary of G is homeomorphic to an (n − 1)-dimensional sphere.

Suppose A and B are normed division algebras, i.e. R,C,H or O, we introduce and study Grassmannians of linear subspaces in (A ⊗ B)n which are complex/Lagrangian/maximal isotropic with respect to natural two tensors on (A ⊗ B)n. We show that every irreducible compact symmetric space must be one of these Grassmannian spaces, possibly up to a finite cover. This gives a simple and uniform description of all compact symmetric spaces. This generalizes the Tits magic square description for simple Lie algebras to compact symmetric spaces.

Given a hyperbolic surface with geodesic boundary S, the lengths of a maximal system of disjoint simple geodesic arcs on S that start and end at @S perpendicularly are coordinates on the Teichm¨uller space T (S). We express the Weil-Petersson Poisson structure of T (S) in this system of coordinates, and we prove that it limits pointwise to the piecewise-linear Poisson structure defined by Kontsevich on the arc complex of S. At the same time, we obtain a formula for the first-order variation of the distance between two closed geodesics under Fenchel-Nielsen deformation.

We give new examples of hyperbolic and relatively hyperbolic groups of cohomological dimension d for all d ≥ 4 (see Theorem 2.13). These examples result from applying CAT(0)/CAT(−1) filling constructions (based on singular doubly warped products) to finite volume hyperbolic manifolds with toral cusps. The groups obtained have a number of interesting properties, which are established by analyzing their boundaries at infinity by a kind of Morse-theoretic technique, related to but distinct from ordinary and combinatorial Morse theory (see Section 5).

Ricci flow deforms the Riemannian metric proportionally to the curvature, such that the curvature evolves according to a heat diffusion process and eventually becomes constant everywhere. Ricci flow has demonstrated its great potential by solving various problems in many fields, which can be hardly handled by alternative methods so far.