Let X be a compact Kähler manifold, and let $L \rightarrow X$ be a holomorphic line bundle equipped with a singular metric h such that the curvature $\mathrm {i}\Theta _{L,h}\geqslant 0$ in the sense of currents. The main result of this paper is the vanishing of $H^n(X,\mathcal {O}(\Omega ^p_X\otimes L)\otimes \mathcal {I}(h))$ for $p\geqslant n-\operatorname {nd}(L,h)+1$, which generalizes Bogomolov’s vanishing theorem and Watanabe’s result.

Let $f:X\to Y$ be a surjective projective map, and let L be a holomorphic line bundle on X equipped with a (singular) semi-positive Hermitian metric h. In this article, by studying the canonical metric on the direct image sheaf of the twisted relative canonical bundles $K_{X/Y}\otimes L\otimes \mathscr {I}(h)$, we obtain that this metric has dual Nakano semi-positivity when h is smooth and there is no deformation by f and that this metric has locally Nakano semi-positivity in the singular sense when h is singular.

In this paper, we develop the theory of singular Hermitian metrics on vector bundles. As an application, we give a structure theorem of a projective manifold X with pseudo-effective tangent bundle; X admits a smooth fibration $X \to Y$ to a flat projective manifold Y such that its general fibre is rationally connected. Moreover, by applying this structure theorem, we classify all the minimal surfaces with pseudo-effective tangent bundle and study general nonminimal surfaces, which provide examples of (possibly singular) positively curved tangent bundles.