We prove the existence of Sasakian-Einstein metrics on infinitely many rational homology spheres in all odd dimensions greater than 3. In dimension 5 we obain somewhat sharper results. There are examples where the number of effective parameters in the Einstein metric grows exponentially with dimension.

Using the theory of normal cycles, we associate with each geometric subset of a Riemannian manifold a —tensor-valued— curvature measure, which we call its second fundamental measure. This measure provides a finer description of the geometry of singular sets than the standard curvature measures. Moreover, we deal with approximation of curvature measures. We get a local quantitative estimate of the difference between curvature measures of two geometric subsets, when one of them is a smooth hypersurface.

I prove that any complex manifold that has a projective second fundmental form isomorphic to one of a rank two compact Hermitian symmetric space (other than a quadric hypersurface) at a general point must be an open subset of such a space. This contrasts the non-rigidity of all other compact Hermitian symmetric spaces observed in J.M. Landsberg and L. Manive's articles. A key step is the use of higher order Bertini type theorems that may be of interest in their own right.

A spherical polyhedral surface is a triangulated surface obtained by isometric gluing of spherical triangles. For instance, the boundary of a generic convex polytope in the 3-sphere is a spherical polyhedral surface. This paper investigates these surfaces from the point of view of inner angles. A rigidity result is obtained. A characterization of spherical polyhedral surfaces in terms of the triangulation and the angle assignment is established.

In this paper we show that there exist simply connected symplectic manifolds which contain infinitely many knotted lagrangian tori, i.e., nonisotopic lagrangian tori that are image of homotopic embeddings. Moreover, the homology class they represent can be assumed to be nontrivial and primitive. This answers a question of Eliashberg and Polterovich.