About the eta–invariants of Berger spheres

The integral of the top dimensional term of the multiplicative sequence of Pontryagin forms associated to an even formal power series is calculated for special Riemannian metrics on the unit ball of a hermitean vector space. Using this result we calculate the generating function of the reduced Dirac and signature η–invariants for the family of Berger metrics on the odd dimensional spheres.     

Affine biharmonic submanifolds in 3-dimensional pseudo-Hermitian geometry

The notion of biharmonic map between Riemannian manifolds is generalized to maps from Riemannian manifolds into affine manifolds. Hopf cylinders in 3-dimensional Sasakian space forms which are biharmonic with respect to Tanaka-Webster connection are classified. Dedicated to professor John C. Wood on his 60th birthday.     

Theorems of existence and of vanishing of conformally killing forms

On an n-dimensional compact, orientable, connected Riemannian manifold, we consider the curvature operator acting on the space of covariant traceless symmetric 2-tensors. We prove that, if the curvature operator is negative, then the manifold admits no nonzero conformally Killing p-forms for p = 1, 2, …, n ? 1. On the other hand, we prove that the dimension of the vector space of conformally Killing p-forms on an n-dimensional compact simply-connected conformally flat Riemannian manifold (M,g) is not zero.     

On geometric vector fields of Minkowski spaces and their applications

As it is well-known, a Minkowski space is a finite dimensional real vector space equipped with a Minkowski functional F. By the help of its second order partial derivatives we can introduce a Riemannian metric on the vector space and the indicatrix hypersurface S:=F⁻¹(1) can be investigated as a Riemannian submanifold in the usual sense.Our aim is to study affine vector fields on the vector space which are, at the same time, affine with respect to the Funk metric associated with the indicatrix hypersurface. We give an upper bound for the dimension of their (real) Lie algebra and it is proved that equality holds if and only if the Minkowski space is Euclidean. Criteria of the existence is also given in lower dimensional cases. Note that in case of a Euclidean vector space the Funk metric reduces to the standard Cayley-Klein metric perturbed with a nonzero 1-form.As an application of our results we present the general solution of Matsumoto's problem on conformal equivalent Berwald and locally Minkowski manifolds. The reasoning is based on the theory of harmonic vector fields on the tangent spaces as Riemannian manifolds or, in an equivalent way, as Minkowski spaces. Our main result states that the conformal equivalence between two Berwald manifolds must be trivial unless the manifolds are Riemannian.     

Twistors, 4-symmetric spaces and integrable systems

An order four automorphism of a Lie algebra gives rise to an integrable system introduced by Terng. We show that solutions of this system may be identified with certain vertically harmonic twistor lifts of conformal maps of surfaces in a Riemannian symmetric space. As applications, we find that surfaces with holomorphic mean curvature in 4-dimensional real or complex space forms constitute an integrable system as do Hamiltonian stationary Lagrangian surfaces in 4-dimensional Hermitian symmetric spaces (this last providing a conceptual explanation of a result of Hélein-Romon).     

L-harmonic functions with polynomial growth of a fixed rate

Yau made the following conjecture: For a complete noncompact manifold with nonnegative Ricci curvature the space of harmonic functions with polynomial growth of a fixed rate is finite dimensional. we extend the result on the Laplace operator to that on the symmetric diffusion operator, and prove the space of L-harmonic functions with polynomial growth of a fixed rate is finite-dimensional, when m-dimensional Bakery-Emery Ricci curvature of the symmetric diffusion operator on the complete noncompact Riemannian manifold is nonnegative.     

Skew Killing spinors

We study the existence of a skew Killing spinor on 2- and 3-dimensional Riemannian spin manifolds. We establish the integrability conditions and prove that these spinor fields correspond to twistor spinors in the two dimensional case while, up to a conformal change of the metric, they correspond to parallel spinors in the three dimensional case.     

An intrinsic characterization of developable surfaces

We consider the classical theorem saying that if f: M → R³ is a Riemannian surface in R³ without planar points and with vanishing Gaussian curvature, then there is an open dense subset M′ of M such that around each point of M′ the surface f is a cylinder or a cone or a tangential developable. As we shall show below, the theorem, in fact, belongs to affine geometry. We give an affine proof of this theorem. The proof works in Riemannian geometry as well. We use the proof for solving the realization problem for a certain class of affine connections on 2-dimensional manifolds. In contrast with Riemannian geometry, in affine geometry, cylinders, cones as well as tangential developables can be characterized intrinsically, i.e. by means of properties of any nowhere flat induced connection. According to the characterization we distinguish three classes of affine connections on 2-dimensional manifolds, i.e. cylindric, conic and TD-connections.     

Generalized normal homogeneous spheres

We find new generalized normal homogeneous but not normal homogeneous Riemannian metrics on spheres of dimensions 4n+3, n ≥ 1, and all homogeneous space forms covered by them; all these spaces have zero Euler characteristic. Deriving consequences, alongside some other new results we obtain new proofs for analogous known results for all complex projective spaces of odd complex dimension starting from three.     

On the geometry of the space of oriented lines of Euclidean space

We prove that the space of all oriented lines of the n-dimensional Euclidean space admits a pseudo-Riemannian metric which is invariant by the induced transitive action of a connected closed subgroup of the group of Euclidean motions, exactly when n=3 or n=7 (as usual, we consider Riemannian metrics as a particular case of pseudo-Riemannian ones). Up to equivalence, there are two such metrics for each dimension, and they are of split type and complete. Besides, we prove that the given metrics are Kähler or nearly Kähler if n=3 or n=7, respectively.     

Combinatorial constructions of packings in Grassmannian spaces

The problem of packing n-dimensional subspaces of m-dimensional Euclidean space such that these subspaces are as far apart as possible was introduced by Conway, Hardin and Sloane. It can be seen as a higher dimensional version of spherical codes or equiangular lines. In this paper, we first give a general construction of equiangular lines, and then present a family of equiangular lines with large size from direct product difference sets. Meanwhile, for packing higher dimensional subspaces, we give three constructions of optimal packings in Grassmannian spaces based on difference sets and Latin squares. As a consequence, we obtain many new classes of optimal Grassmannian packings.     

Biharmonic Riemannian submersions from 3-manifolds

An important theorem about biharmonic submanifolds proved independently by Chen-Ishikawa (Kyushu J Math 52(1):167?C185, 1998) and Jiang (Chin Ann Math Ser. 8A:376?C383, 1987) states that an isometric immersion of a surface into 3-dimensional Euclidean space is biharmonic if and only if it is harmonic (i.e, minimal). In a later paper, Caddeo et?al. (Isr J Math 130:109?C123, 2002) showed that the theorem remains true if the target Euclidean space is replaced by a 3-dimensional hyperbolic space form. In this paper, we prove the dual results for Riemannian submersions, i.e., a Riemannian submersion from a 3-dimensional space form into a surface is biharmonic if and only if it is harmonic.     

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.     

Poisson transforms adapted to BGG-complexes

We present a new construction of Poisson transforms between vector bundle valued differential forms on homogeneous parabolic geometries and vector bundle valued differential forms on the corresponding Riemannian symmetric space, which can be described in terms of finite dimensional representations of reductive Lie groups. In particular, we use these operators to relate the BGG-sequences on the domain to twisted deRham sequences on the target space. Finally, we explicitly design a family of Poisson transforms between standard tractor valued differential forms for the real hyperbolic space and its boundary which are compatible with the BGG-complex.     

Représentations des algèbres de clifford des formes binaires et ternaires cubiques

Clifford algebras of polynomial forms of degreed>2 defined by N. Roby are infinite dimensional when the module has rank bigger than 1. So the study of their representations differs from that of Clifford algebras of quadratic forms. Some authors have established several results in this domain, especially in the case of binary cubic forms, which can be found in the bibliography. In the first section of this paper, we consider the case of binary cubic forms and the base fieldK is algebraically closed. We define an explicit family of irreducible representations of their Clifford algebras, indexed by only one parameter, such that every 3-dimensional representation is equivalent to an element of this family. When the form is ternary cubic, Revoy and Tesser on one hand, Van den Bergh on the other, proved in two different ways, in [7] and [9] respectively, the existence of 3-dimensional linearizations. In the last section, we show directly that the number of classes of 3-dimensional representations is finite and non zero.     

Normal forms and invariants for 2-dimensional almost-Riemannian structures

2-Dimensional almost-Riemannian structures are generalized Riemannian structures on surfaces for which a local orthonormal frame is given by a Lie bracket generating pair of vector fields that can become collinear. Generically, there are three types of points: Riemannian points where the two vector fields are linearly independent, Grushin points where the two vector fields are collinear but their Lie bracket is not, and tangency points where the two vector fields and their Lie bracket are collinear and the missing direction is obtained with one more bracket.In this paper we consider the problem of finding normal forms and functional invariants at each type of point. We also require that functional invariants are “complete” in the sense that they permit to recognize locally isometric structures.The problem happens to be equivalent to the one of finding a smooth canonical parameterized curve passing through the point and being transversal to the distribution.For Riemannian points such that the gradient of the Gaussian curvature K is different from zero, we use the level set of K as support of the parameterized curve. For Riemannian points such that the gradient of the curvature vanishes (and under additional generic conditions), we use a curve which is found by looking for crests and valleys of the curvature. For Grushin points we use the set where the vector fields are parallel.Tangency points are the most complicated to deal with. The cut locus from the tangency point is not a good candidate as canonical parameterized curve since it is known to be non-smooth. Thus, we analyse the cut locus from the singular set and we prove that it is not smooth either. A good candidate appears to be a curve which is found by looking for crests and valleys of the Gaussian curvature. We prove that the support of such a curve is uniquely determined and has a canonical parametrization.     

Tightness in contact metric 3-manifolds

This paper begins the study of relations between Riemannian geometry and global properties of contact structures on 3-manifolds. In particular we prove an analog of the sphere theorem from Riemannian geometry in the setting of contact geometry. Specifically, if a given three dimensional contact manifold (M,ξ) admits a complete compatible Riemannian metric of positive 4/9-pinched curvature then the underlying contact structure ξ is tight; in particular, the contact structure pulled back to the universal cover is the standard contact structure on S ³. We also describe geometric conditions in dimension three for ξ to be universally tight in the nonpositive curvature setting.     

Polar Transform of Conformally Flat Metrics

In the theory of convex subsets in a Euclidean space, an important role is played by Minkowski duality (the polar transform of a convex set, or the Legendre transform of a convex set). We consider conformally flat Riemannian metrics on the n-dimensional unit sphere and their embeddings into the isotropic cone of the Lorentz space. For a given class of metrics, we define and carry out a detailed study of the Legendre transform.