Obstructions to nonpositive curvature for open manifolds

Abstract: We study algebraic conditions on a group G under which every properly discontinuous, isometric G-action on a Hadamard manifold has a G-invariant Busemann function. For such G we prove the following structure theorem: every open complete nonpositively curved Riemannian K(G,1) manifold that is homotopy equivalent to a finite complex of codimension >2 is an open regular neighborhood of a subcomplex of the same codimension. In this setting we show that each tangential homotopy type contains infinitely many open K(G,1) manifolds that admit no complete nonpositively curved metric even though their universal cover is the Euclidean space. A sample application is that an open contractible manifold W is homeomorphic to a Euclidean space if and only if the product of W and a circle admits a complete Riemannian metric of nonpositive curvature.