A characterization of complex quasi-projective manifolds uniformized by unit balls

In 1988 Simpson extended the Donaldson-Uhlenbeck-Yau theorem to the context of Higgs bundles, and as an application he proved a uniformization theorem which characterizes complex projective manifolds and quasi-projective curves whose universal coverings are complex unit balls. In this paper we give a necessary and sufficient condition for quasi-projective manifolds to be uniformized by complex unit balls. This generalizes the uniformization theorem by Simpson. Several byproducts are also obtained in this paper.