By studying the heat semigroup, we prove Li-Yau type estimates for bounded and positive solutions of the heat equation on graphs, under the assumption of the curvature-dimension inequality $CDE'(n,0)$, which can be consider as a notion of curvature for graphs. Furthermore, we derive that if a graph has non-negative curvature then it has the volume doubling property, from this we can prove the Gaussian estimate for heat kernel, and then Poincar\'{e} inequality and Harnack inequality. As a consequence, we obtain that the dimension of space of harmonic functions on graphs with polynomial growth is finite, which original is a conjecture of Yau on Riemannian manifold proved by Colding and Minicozzi. Under the assumption of positive curvature on graphs, we derive the Bonnet-Myers type theorem that the diameter of graphs is finite and bounded above in terms of the positive curvature by proving some Log Sobolev inequalities.

Inversive distance circle packing metric was introduced by P Bowers and K Stephenson as a generalization of Thurston’s circle packing metric. They conjectured that the inversive distance circle packings are rigid. For nonnegative inversive distance, Guo proved the infinitesimal rigidity and then Luo proved the global rigidity. In this paper, based on an observation of Zhou, we prove this conjecture for inversive distance in (−1, +∞)by variational principles. We also study the global rigidity of a combinatorial curvature with respect to the inversive distance circle packing metrics where the inversive distance is in (−1, +∞).

Two Dehn surgeries on a knot are called purely cosmetic, if they yield manifolds that are homeomorphic as oriented manifolds. Suppose there exist purely cosmetic surgeries on a knot in S^3, we show that the two surgery slopes must be the opposite of each other. One ingredient of our proof is a Dehn surgery formula for correction terms in Heegaard Floer homology.

We propose a finite-dimensional variational principle on triangulated 3-manifolds so that its critical points are related to solutions to Thurstons gluing equation and Hakens normal surface equation. The action functional is the volume.

We prove a McShane-type identity: a series, expressed in terms of geodesic lengths, that sums to 2π for any closed hyperbolic surface with one distinguished point. To do so, we prove a generalized Birman-Series theorem showing that the set of complete geodesics on a hyperbolic surface with large cone angles is sparse.