Scalar Curvature Lower Bounds and Convergence in Measure

Abstract: Assume that smooth metrics $g_k$ converge in measure to a smooth metric $g$. Gromov asked the following question: if all the metrics $g_k$ have non-negative scalar curvature does it follow that $g$ also has non-negative scalar curvature? We answer Gromov's question in dimension three. We show that, without further assumptions, the metric $g$ need not have non-negative scalar curvature and in fact $g$ may be completely arbitrary. However, if one assumes in addition that the identity maps $(M,g_k)\to (M,g)$ are uniformly bi-Lipschitz, then indeed $g$ must have non-negative scalar curvature. Our method of proof can also be used to show that, under an almost Euclidean entropy condition, scalar curvature lower bounds will persist under convergence of the metrics together with their inverses in $L<sup>p$ for suitably large $p$.