# Members & Guests

## Prof. Dr. Bernhard Hanke

### Speaker, Member of Programme committee, Project leader

Professor für Differentialgeometrie
Universität Augsburg

E-mail: hanke(at)math.uni-augsburg.de
Telephone: +49 821 598 - 22 38
Homepage: https://www.uni-augsburg.de/de/fakultaet…

## Project

15Spaces and Moduli Spaces of Riemannian Metrics with Curvature Bounds on compact and non-compact Manifolds
52Spaces and Moduli Spaces of Riemannian Metrics with Curvature Bounds on compact and non-compact Manifolds II

## Publications within SPP2026

We prove the following Lipschitz rigidity result in scalar curvature geometry. Let $M$ be a closed smooth connected spin manifold of even dimension $n$, let $g$ be a Riemannian metric of regularity $W^{1,p}$, $p > n$, on $M$ whose distributional scalar curvature in the sense of Lee-LeFloch is bounded below by $n(n-1)$, and let  $f \colon (M,g) \to \mathbb{S}^n$ be a $1$-Lipschitz continuous (not necessarily smooth) map of non-zero degree to the unit  $n$-sphere. Then $f$ is a metric isometry. This generalizes a result of Llarull (1998) and answers in the affirmative a question of Gromov (2019) in his "four lectures". Our proof is based on spectral properties of Dirac operators for  low regularity Riemannian metrics and twisted with Lipschitz bundles, and on the theory of quasiregular maps due to Reshetnyak.

We show that local deformations, near closed subsets, of solutions to open partial differential relations can be extended to global deformations, provided all but the highest derivatives stay constant along the subset. The applicability of this general result is illustrated by a number of examples, dealing with convex embeddings of hypersurfaces, differential forms, and lapse functions in Lorentzian geometry.

The main application is a general approximation result by sections which have very restrictive local properties an open dense subsets. This shows, for instance, that given any K∈R every manifold of dimension at least two carries a complete C^1,1-metric which, on a dense open subset, is smooth with constant sectional curvature K. Of course this is impossible for C^2-metrics in general.

 Journal Comm. Pure Appl. Mathematics Volume 75 Pages 1377-1415 Link to preprint version Link to published version

We introduce Riemannian metrics of positive scalar curvature on manifolds with Baas-Sullivan singularities, prove a corresponding homology invariance principle and discuss admissible products.

Using this theory we construct positive scalar curvature metrics on closed smooth manifolds of dimensions at least five which have odd order abelian fundamental groups, are non-spin and  atoral. This solves the Gromov-Lawson-Rosenberg conjecture for a new class of manifolds with finite fundamental groups.

 Journal Geometry & Topology Publisher MSP Volume 25 (2021) Pages 497-546 Link to preprint version Link to published version

Based on  Morse theory for the energy functional on path spaces we develop a deformation theory for mapping spaces of  spheres into orthogonal groups. This is used to show that these mapping spaces are weakly homotopy equivalent, in a stable range, to mapping spaces associated to orthogonal Clifford representations. Given an oriented Euclidean bundle $V \to X$ of rank divisible by four over a finite complex $X$ we derive a stable decomposition result for vector bundles over  the sphere bundle $\mathbb{S}( \mathbb{R} \oplus V)$  in terms of vector bundles and Clifford module bundles over $X$. After passing to topological K-theory these results imply classical Bott-Thom isomorphism theorems.

 Journal São Paulo Journal of Mathematical Sciences (to appear) Link to preprint version

Based on the Atiyah-Patodi-Singer index formula, we construct an obstruction to positive scalar curvature metrics with mean convex boundaries on spin manifolds of infinite K-area. We also characterize the extremal case. Next we show a general deformation principle for boundary conditions of metrics with lower scalar curvature bounds. This implies that the relaxation of boundary conditions often induces weak homotopy equivalences of spaces of such metrics. This can be used to refine the smoothing of codimension-one singularites a la Miao and the deformation of boundary conditions a la Brendle-Marques-Neves, among others. Finally, we construct compact manifolds for which the spaces of positive scalar curvature metrics with mean convex boundaries have nontrivial higher homotopy groups.

As shown by Gromov-Lawson and Stolz the only obstruction to the existence of positive
scalar curvature metrics on closed simply connected manifolds in dimensions at least
five appears on spin manifolds, and is given by the non-vanishing of the $$\alpha$$-genus
of Hitchin.
When unobstructed we will in this paper realise  a positive scalar curvature metric by an
immersion into Euclidean space whose dimension is uniformly close to the classical Whitney
upper-bound for smooth immersions. Our main tool is an extrinsic counterpart of the well-known Gromov-Lawson surgery procedure
for constructing positive scalar curvature metrics.

The canonical map from the $$\mathbb{Z}/2$$-equivariant Lazard ring to the $$\mathbb{Z}/2$$-equivariant complex bordism ring is an isomorphism.