Springer Science and Business Media LLC

In this paper we consider Riemannian metrics without conjugate points on an n-torus. Recent work of J. Heber established that the gradient vector fields of Busemann functions on the universal cover of such a manifold induce a natural foliation (akin to the weak stable foliation for a Riemannian manifold with negative sectional curvature) on the unit tangent bundle. The main result in the paper is that the metric is flat if this foliation is Lipschitz. We also prove that this foliation is Lipschitz if and only if the metric has bounded asymptotes. This confirms a conjecture of E. Hopf in this case.

We prove that the quantum mechanical ground state energy of an atom with nuclear chargeZ can be bounded from below by the sum of the Thomas-Fermi energy of the problem plusq/8Z 2 plus terms of ordero(Z 2 ).

Any compact ? ∞ manifold with boundary admits a Riemann metric on its interior taking the form x −4 dx 2 +x −2 h′ near the boundary, where x is a boundary defining function and h′ is a smooth symmetric 2-cotensor restricting to be positive-definite, and hence a metric, h, on the boundary. The scattering theory associated to the Laplacian for such a ‘scattering metric’ was discussed by the first author and here it is shown, as conjectured, that the scattering matrix is a Fourier integral operator which quantizes the geodesic flow on the boundary, for the metric h, at time π. To prove this the Poisson operator, of the associated generalized boundary problem, is constructed as a Fourier integral operator associated to a singular Legendre manifold.

We prove that every transcendental meromorphic map $$f$$ with disconnected Julia set has a weakly repelling fixed point. This implies that the Julia set of Newton’s method for finding zeroes of an entire map is connected. Moreover, extending a result of Cowen for holomorphic self-maps of the disc, we show the existence of absorbing domains for holomorphic self-maps of hyperbolic regions, whose iterates tend to a boundary point. In particular, the results imply that periodic Baker domains of Newton’s method for entire maps are simply connected, which solves a well-known open question.