Positivity of simplicial volume for closed nonpositively curved four-manifolds with nonzero Euler characteristic

In this paper, by employing the Gauss-Bonnet theorem for Riemannian simplices due to Allendoerfer and Weil, we show that if a closed nonpositively curved $4$-manifold has nonzero Euler characteristic, then its simplicial volume is necessarily positive.

This result partially resolves conjectures posed by Connell-Ruan-Wang and Gromov concerning the relationship between the simplicial volume and the Euler characteristic for four-dimensional manifolds.

As an application, we show that if a closed nonpositively curved $4$-manifold has negative Ricci curvature, then its simplicial volume is positive, thereby confirming in dimension four another conjecture of Gromov on the positivity of simplicial volume.