On the curvature of 4-manifolds |
Abstract: A central problem in global differential geometry is to determine when a smooth compact n-manifold admits a metric which is "as flat as possible". In this lecture, I will describe some recent results on the existence and non-existence of such "optimal metrics" on simply connected 4-manifolds. Interestingly, the difference between existence and non-existence turns out to delicately depend on one's choice of differentiable structure; it is not determined by the homeomorphism type alone. |
Web page: Alexandru I. Suciu | Comments to: alexsuciu@neu.edu | |
Posted: May 11, 2004 | URL: http://www.math.neu.edu/bhmn/lebrun04.html |