We prove that the existence of one horosphere in the universal cover of a closed Riemannian manifold of dimension $n \geq 3$ with strongly $1/4$-pinched or relatively $1/2$-pinched sectional curvature, on which the stable holonomy along one horosphere coincides with the Riemannian parallel transport, implies that the manifold is homothetic to a real hyperbolic manifold.

We show that for $n \neq 1,4$, the simplicial volume of an inward tame triangulable open $n$-manifold $M$ with amenable fundamental group at infinity at each end is finite; moreover, we show that if also $\pi _1(M)$ is amenable, then the simplicial volume of $M$ vanishes. We show that the same result holds for finitely-many-ended triangulable manifolds which are simply connected at infinity.

The simplicial complexity is an invariant for finitely presentable groups which was recently introduced by Babenko, Balacheff, and Bulteau to study systolic area. The simplicial complexity κ(G) was proved to be a good approximation of the systolic area σ(G) for large values of κ(G). In this paper we compute the simplicial complexity of all surface groups (both in the orientable and in the non-orientable case). This partially settles a problem raised by Babenko, Balacheff, and Bulteau. We also prove that κ(G * ℤ) = κ(G) for any surface group G. This provides the first partial evidence in favor of the conjecture of the stability of the simplicial complexity under free product with free groups. The general stability problem, both for simplicial complexity and for systolic area, remains open.

We present an algorithm for calculating the geometric intersection number of two multicurves on the $n$-punctured disk, taking as input their Dynnikov coordinates. The algorithm has complexity $O(m^{2}n^{4})$, where $m$ is the sum of the absolute values of the Dynnikov coordinates of the two multicurves. The main ingredient is an algorithm due to Cumplido for relaxing a multicurve.

A subset $W$ of a closed manifold $M$ is $K$-contractible, where $K$ is a torus or Klein bottle if the inclusion $W\,\to \,M$ factors homotopically through a map to $K$. The image of ${{\pi }_{1}}\left( W \right)$ (for any base point) is a subgroup of ${{\pi }_{1}}\left( M \right)$ that is isomorphic to a subgroup of a quotient group of ${{\pi }_{1}}\left( K \right)$. Subsets of $M$ with this latter property are called ${{\mathcal{G}}_{K}}$-contractible. We obtain a list of the closed 3-manifolds that can be covered by two open ${{\mathcal{G}}_{K}}$-contractible subsets. This is applied to obtain a list of the possible closed prime 3-manifolds that can be covered by two open $K$-contractible subsets.

We show that closed $\widetilde{\mathbb{S}\mathbb{L}}\,\times \,{{\mathbb{E}}^{n}}$-manifolds are topologically rigid if $n\,\ge \,2$, and are rigid up to $s$-cobordism, if $n\,=\,1$.

We provide an explicit thick and thin decomposition for oriented hyperbolic manifolds $M$ of dimension 5. The result implies improved universal lower bounds for the volume $\text{vo}{{\text{l}}_{\text{5}}}\left( M \right)$ and, for $M$ compact, new estimates relating the injectivity radius and the diameter of $M$ with $\text{vo}{{\text{l}}_{\text{5}}}\left( M \right)$. The quantification of the thin part is based upon the identification of the isometry group of the universal space by the matrix group $\text{P}{{\text{S}}_{\Delta }}\text{L}\left( 2,\,\mathbb{H} \right)$ of quaternionic $2\,\times \,2$-matrices with Dieudonné determinant $\Delta$ equal to 1 and isolation properties of $\text{P}{{\text{S}}_{\Delta }}\text{L}\left( 2,\,\mathbb{H} \right)$.