Construction of surfaces with large systolic ratio

Abstract

Let $(M,g)$ be a closed, oriented, Riemannian manifold of dimension $m$. We call a systole a shortest non-contractible loop in $(M,g)$ and denote by $sys(M,g)$ its length. Let $SR(M,g)=\frac{{sys(M,g)}^m}{vol(M,g)}$ be the systolic ratio of $(M,g)$. Denote by $SR(k)$ the supremum of $SR(S,g)$ among the surfaces of fixed genus $k \neq 0$. In Section 2 we construct surfaces with large systolic ratio from surfaces with systolic ratio close to the optimal value $SR(k)$ using cutting and pasting techniques. For all $k_i \geq 1$, this enables us to prove: $$\frac{1}{SR(k_1 + k_2)} \leq \frac{1}{SR(k_1)} + \frac{1}{SR(k_2)}.$$ We furthermore derive the equivalent intersystolic inequality for $SR_h(k)$, the supremum of the homological systolic ratio. As a consequence we greatly enlarge the number of genera $k$ for which the bound $SR_h(k) \geq SR(k) \gtrsim \frac{4}{9\pi} \frac{\log(k)^2}{k}$ is valid and show that that $SR_h(k) \leq \frac{(\log(195k)+8)^2}{\pi(k-1)}$ for all $k \geq 76$. In Section 3 we expand on this idea. There we construct product manifolds with large systolic ratio from lower dimensional manifolds.