Jacobi osculating rank and isotropic geodesics on naturally reductive 3-manifolds

We study the Jacobi osculating rank of geodesics on naturally reductive homogeneous manifolds and we apply this theory to the 3-dimensional case. Here, each non-symmetric, simply connected naturally reductive 3-manifold can be given as a principal bundle M³(κ,τ) over a surface of constant curvature κ, such that the curvature of its horizontal distribution is a constant τ>0, with τ²≠κ. Then, we prove that the Jacobi osculating rank of every geodesic of M³(κ,τ) is two except for the Hopf fibers, where it is zero. Moreover, we determine all isotropic geodesics and the isotropic tangent conjugate locus.