Multiple closed geodesics on 3-spheres

This paper is devoted to a study on closed geodesics on Finsler and Riemannian spheres. We call a prime closed geodesic on a Finsler manifold rational, if the basic normal form decomposition (cf. [Y. Long, Bott formula of the Maslov-type index theory, Pacific J. Math. 187 (1999) 113-149]) of its linearized Poincaré map contains no 2×2 rotation matrix with rotation angle which is an irrational multiple of π, or irrational otherwise. We prove that if there exists only one prime closed geodesic on a d-dimensional irreversible Finsler sphere with d?2, it cannot be rational. Then we further prove that there exist always at least two distinct prime closed geodesics on every irreversible Finsler 3-dimensional sphere. Our method yields also at least two geometrically distinct closed geodesics on every reversible Finsler as well as Riemannian 3-dimensional sphere. We prove also such results hold for all compact simply connected 3-dimensional manifolds with irreversible or reversible Finsler as well as Riemannian metrics.     

New examples of Riemannian g.o. manifolds in dimension 7

A Riemannian g.o. manifold is a homogeneous Riemannian manifold (M,g) on which every geodesic is an orbit of a one-parameter group of isometries. It is known that every simply connected Riemannian g.o. manifold of dimension ?5 is naturally reductive. In dimension 6 there are simply connected Riemannian g.o. manifolds which are in no way naturally reductive, and their full classification is known (including compact examples). In dimension 7, just one new example has been known up to now (namely, a Riemannian nilmanifold constructed by C. Gordon). In the present paper we describe compact irreducible 7-dimensional Riemannian g.o. manifolds (together with their “noncompact duals”) which are in no way naturally reductive.     

Entropy-expansiveness of geodesic flows on closed manifolds without conjugate points

In this article, we consider the entropy-expansiveness of geodesic flows on closed Riemannian manifolds without conjugate points. We prove that, if the manifold has no focal points, or if the manifold is bounded asymptote, then the geodesic flow is entropy-expansive. Moreover, for the compact oriented surfaces without conjugate points, we prove that the geodesic flows are entropy-expansive. We also give an estimation of distance between two positively asymptotic geodesics of an uniform visibility manifold.     

Geodesic vector fields and Eikonal equation on a Riemannian manifold

In this paper, we study the impact of geodesic vector fields (vector fields whose trajectories are geodesics) on the geometry of a Riemannian manifold. Since, Killing vector fields of constant lengths on a Riemannian manifold are geodesic vector fields, leads to the question of finding sufficient conditions for a geodesic vector field to be Killing. In this paper, we show that a lower bound on the Ricci curvature of the Riemannian manifold in the direction of geodesic vector field gives a sufficient condition for the geodesic vector field to be Killing. Also, we use a geodesic vector field on a 3-dimensional complete simply connected Riemannian manifold to find sufficient conditions to be isometric to a 3-sphere. We find a characterization of an Einstein manifold using a Killing vector field. Finally, it has been observed that a major source of geodesic vector fields is provided by solutions of Eikonal equations on a Riemannian manifold and we obtain a characterization of the Euclidean space using an Eikonal equation.     

On causality and closed geodesics of compact Lorentzian manifolds and static spacetimes

Some results related to the causality of compact Lorentzian manifolds are proven: (1) any compact Lorentzian manifold which admits a timelike conformal vector field is totally vicious, and (2) a compact Lorentzian manifold covered regularly by a globally hyperbolic spacetime admits a timelike closed geodesic, if some natural topological assumptions (fulfilled, for example, if one of the conjugacy classes of deck transformations containing a closed timelike curve is finite) hold. As a consequence, any compact Lorentzian manifold conformal to a static spacetime is geodesically connected by causal geodesics, and admits a timelike closed geodesic.     

On doubly warped product Finsler manifolds

In this paper, we introduce horizontal and vertical warped product Finsler manifolds. We prove that every C-reducible or proper Berwaldian doubly warped product Finsler manifold is Riemannian. Then, we find the relation between Riemannian curvatures of doubly warped product Finsler manifold and its components, and consider the cases that this manifold is flat or has scalar flag curvature. We define the doubly warped Sasaki-Matsumoto metric for warped product manifolds and find a condition under which the horizontal and vertical tangent bundles are totally geodesic. We obtain some conditions under which a foliated manifold reduces to a Reinhart manifold. Finally, we study an almost complex structure on the tangent bundle of a doubly warped product Finsler manifold.     

Closed geodesics and volume growth of open manifolds with sectional curvature bounded from below

In this paper, the relationship between the existence of closed geodesics and the volume growth of complete noncompact Riemannian manifolds is studied. First the authors prove a diffeomorphic result of such an n-m2nifold with nonnegative sectional curvature, which improves Marenich-Toponogov＇s theorem. As an application, a rigidity theorem is obtained for nonnegatively curved open manifold which contains a clesed geodesic. Next the authors prove a theorem about the nonexistence of closed geodesics for Riemannian manifolds with sectional curvature bounded from below by a negative constant.     

Obstructions to toric integrable geodesic flows in dimension 3

The geodesic flow of a Riemannian metric on a compact manifold Q is said to be toric integrable if it is completely integrable and the first integrals of motion generate a homogeneous torus action on the punctured cotangent bundle T ^* Q\Q. If the geodesic flow is toric integrable, the cosphere bundle admits the structure of a contact toric manifold. By comparing the Betti numbers of contact toric manifolds and cosphere bundles, we are able to provide necessary conditions for the geodesic flow on a compact, connected 3-dimensional Riemannian manifold to be toric integrable.Mathematics Subject Classifications (2000): primary 53D25; secondary 53D10     

Homogeneous geodesics in solvable Lie groups

After the second author and J. Szenthe [10] proved that every homogeneous Riemannian manifold admits a homogeneous geodesic, several authors studied the set of all homogeneous geodesics in various homogeneous spaces. In this paper, we consider special examples of homogeneous spaces of solvable type of arbitrary odd dimension given in [1] and [7] and we show that their sets of homogeneous geodesics have an interesting structure, closely connected to the notion of Hadamard matrices.     

Homogeneous geodesics and the critical points of the restricted Finsler function

In this paperwe study the set of homogeneous geodesics of a left-invariant Finsler metric on Lie groups. We first give a simple criterion that characterizes geodesic vectors. We extend J. Szenthe’s result on homogeneous geodesics to left-invariant Finsler metrics. This result gives a relation between geodesic vectors and restricted Minkowski norm in Finsler setting. We show that if a compact connected and semisimple Lie group has rank greater than 1, then for every left-invariant Finsler metric there are infinitely many homogeneous geodesics through the identity element.     

The short ruler on the torus

ABSTRACT

We can shorten any path that links two given points by applying short ruler transforms iteratively. In this article we take a closer look at a short ruler process on the torus. The torus is a compact Riemannian manifold and at least a subsequence of the process converges to a geodesic between the two points. However, on compact Riemann manifolds there might exist different limit geodesics (with the same length). On the torus, the geodesics with the same length are isolated and the limit geodesic is unique.     

Decomposition of spaces with geodesics contained in compact flats

We prove a decomposition result for analytic spaces all of whose geodesics are contained in compact flats. Namely, we prove that a Riemannian manifold is such a space if and only if it admits a (finite) cover which splits as the product of a flat torus with simply connected factors which are either symmetric (of the compact type) or spaces of closed geodesics.

     

Gromov-hyperbolicity and transitivity of geodesic flows in n-dimensional Finsler manifolds

We show that the geodesic flow of a compact Finsler manifold without conjugate points is transitive provided that the universal covering satisfies the uniform Finsler visibility condition. This result is a nontrivial extension of a well known theorem due to Eberlein for Riemannian manifolds. For doing so, we introduce suitable Finsler versions of the concepts of Gromov's δ-hyperbolicity and Eberlein's visibility, and study their consequences.     

Length spectra and<Emphasis Type="Italic">p</Emphasis>-spectra of compact flat manifolds

We compare and contrast various length vs Laplace spectra of compact flat Riemannian manifolds. As a major consequence we produce the first examples of pairs of closed manifolds that are isospectral on p-forms for some p ≠ 0, but have different weak length spectrum. For instance, we give a pair of 4-dimensional manifolds that are isospectral on p-forms for p = 1, 3and we exhibit a length of a closed geodesic that occurs in one manifold but cannot occur in the other. We also exhibit examples of this kind having different injectivity radius and different first eigenvalue of the Laplace spectrum on functions. These results follow from a method that uses integral roots of the Krawtchouk polynomials. We prove a Poisson summation formula relating the p-eigenvalue spectrum with the lengths of closed geodesics. As a consequence we show that the Laplace spectrum on functions determines the lengths of closed geodesics and, by an example, that it does not determine the complex lengths. Furthermore we show that orientability is an audible property for closed flat manifolds. We give a variety of examples, for instance, a pair of manifolds isospectral on functions (resp. Sunada isospectral) with different multiplicities of length of closed geodesies and a pair with the same multiplicities of complex lengths of closed geodesies and not isospectral on p-forms for any p, or else isospectral on p-forms for only one value of p ≠ 0.     

On the volume of the intersection of two geodesic balls

The first author and D. Kunszenti-Kovács (2010) [1] proved that if the volume of the intersection of three geodesic balls of a complete connected Riemannian manifold depends only on the center-center distances and the radii of the balls, then the manifold is one of the simply connected spaces of constant curvature. In this paper, we study the geometrical consequences of the analogous condition for pairs of geodesic balls. We show that in a complete, connected and simply connected Riemannian manifold, the volume of the intersection of two small geodesic balls depends only on the distance between the centers and the radii if and only if the space is harmonic. It is also shown that if in a Riemannian manifold the volume of the intersection of two small geodesic balls of equal radii depends only on the distance between the centers and the common value of the radii, then the space is Einstein, and if we assume in addition that the space is symmetric, then it must be Osserman and hence two-point homogeneous.     

On the Dynamics of Uniform Finsler Manifolds of Negative Flag Curvature

The geodesic flow of a compact Finsler manifold with negative flag curvature is an Anosov flow [23]. We use the structure of the stable and unstable foliation to equip the geodesic ray boundary of the universal covering with a Hölder structure. Gromov's geodesic rigidity and the Theorem of Dinaburg--Manning on the relation between the topological entropy and the volume entropy are generalized to the case of Finsler manifolds.     

The laplace operator on normal homogeneous Riemannian manifolds

The article presents an information about the Laplace operator defined on the real-valued mappings of compact Riemannian manifolds, and its spectrum; some properties of the latter are studied. The relationship between the spectra of two Riemannian manifolds connected by a Riemannian submersion with totally geodesic fibers is established. We specify a method of calculating the spectrum of the Laplacian for simply connected simple compact Lie groups with biinvariant Riemannian metrics, by representations of their Lie algebras. As an illustration, the spectrum of the Laplacian on the group SU(2) is found.     

Line integration of Ricci curvature and conjugate points in Lorentzian and Riemannian manifolds

Generalizing results of Cohn-Vossen and Gromoll, Meyer for Riemannian manifolds and Hawking and Penrose for Lorentzian manifolds, we use Morse index theory techniques to show that if the integral of the Ricci curvature of the tangent vector field of a complete geodesic in a Riemannian manifold or of a complete nonspacelike geodesic in a Lorentzian manifold is positive, then the geodesic contains a pair of conjugate points. Applications are given to geodesic incompleteness theorems for Lorentzian manifolds, the end structure of complete noncompact Riemannian manifolds, and the geodesic flow of compact Riemannian manifolds.Partially supported by NSF grant MCS77-18723(02).     

Integrable Geodesic Flows on Riemannian Manifolds

We discuss the notion of geodesics and study the global behavior of geodesics on closed Riemannian manifolds. In particular, we emphasize the case of so-called integrable geodesic flows.     

A Review of the Index Method in Closed Geodesic Problem

In this paper we review and systematize the index method in closed geodesic problem.As we know,the closed geodesic problem on compact Riemannian or Finsler manifold is a famous problem,and has far from been resolved.In recent years,the Maslov-type index theory for symplectic path has been applied to studying the closed geodesic problem,and has induced a great number of results on the multiplicity and stability of closed geodesics.We will systematically introduce these progresses in this review.