This paper belongs to the realm of conformal geometry and deals with Euclidean submanifolds that admit smooth variations that are infinitesimally conformal. Conformal variations of Euclidean submanifolds is a classical subject in differential geometry. In fact, already in 1917 Cartan classified parametrically the Euclidean hypersurfaces that admit nontrivial conformal variations. Our first main result is a Fundamental theorem for conformal infinitesimal variations. The second is a rigidity theorem for Euclidean submanifolds that lie in low codimension.
This paper deals with the subject of infinitesimal variations of Euclidean submanifolds with arbitrary dimension and codimension. The main goal is to establish a Fundamental theorem for these geometric objects. Similar to the theory of isometric immersions in Euclidean space, we prove that a system of three equations for a certain pair of tensors are the integrability conditions for the differential equation that determines the infinitesimal variations. In addition, we give some rigidity results when the submanifold is intrinsically a Riemannian product of manifolds.
A basic question in submanifold theory is whether a given isometric immersion $f\colon M^n\to\R^{n+p}$ of a Riemannian manifold of dimension $n\geq 3$ into Euclidean space with low codimension $p$ admits, locally or globally, a genuine infinitesimal bending. That is, if there exists a genuine smooth variation of $f$ by immersions that are isometric up to the first order. Until now only the hypersurface case $p=1$ was well understood. We show that a strong necessary local condition to admit such a bending is the submanifold to be ruled and give a lower bound for the dimension of the rulings. In…
Associative submanifolds $A$ in nearly parallel $G_2$-manifolds $Y$ are minimal 3-submanifolds in spin 7-manifolds with a real Killing spinor. The Riemannian cone over $Y$ has the holonomy group contained in ${\rm Spin(7)}$ and the Riemannian cone over $A$ is a Cayley submanifold. Infinitesimal deformations of associative submanifolds were considered by the author. This paper is a continuation of the work. We give a necessary and sufficient condition for an infinitesimal associative deformation to be integrable (unobstructed) to second order explicitly. As an application, we show that the infi…
Using the notion of a contravariant derivative, we give some algebraic and geometric characterizations of Poisson algebras associated to the infinitesimal data of Poisson submanifolds. We show that such a class of Poisson algebras provides a suitable framework for the study of the Hamiltonization problem for the linearized dynamics along Poisson submanifolds.
We give the characterization of Arnol'd-Mather type for stable singular Legendre immersions. The most important building block of the theory is providing a module structure on the space of infinitesimal integral deformations by means of the notion of natural liftings of differential systems and of contact Hamiltonian vector fields.
Local and global conformal invariants of submanifolds
Penn State University（宾夕法尼亚州立大学）；Rutgers University（罗格斯大学）；Wichita State University（威奇托州立大学）；University of Notre Dame（圣母大学）；Sun Yat-sen University（中山大学）
In the present paper first, we define the conformal Sasakian manifolds and then we study geometry of invariant, anti-invariant and CR-submanifolds of conformal Sasakian manifolds.
We extend to the conformal realm the concept of genuine deformations of submanifolds, introduced by Dajczer and the first author for the isometric case. Analogously to that case, we call a conformal deformation of a submanifold $M^n$ genuine if no open subset of $M^n$ can be included as a submanifold of a higher dimensional conformally deformable submanifold in such a way that the conformal deformation of the former is induced by a conformal deformation of the latter. We describe the geometric structure of a submanifold that admits a genuine conformal deformation and give several applications …
First, we prove that indefinite Sasakian manifolds do not admit any screen conformal $r$-null submanifolds, tangent to the structure vector field. We, therefore, define a special class of null submanifolds, called; {\it contact screen conformal} $r$-null submanifold of indefinite Sasakian manifolds. Several characterization results, on the above class of null submanifolds, are proved. In particular, we prove that such null submanifolds exist in indefinite Sasakian space forms of constant holomorphic sectional curvatures of $-3$.
It was proved by Graham and Witten in 1999 that conformal invariants of submanifolds can be obtained via volume renormalization of minimal surfaces in conformally compact Einstein manifolds. The conformal invariant of a submanifold $Σ$ is contained in the volume expansion of the minimal surface which is asymptotic to $Σ$ when the minimal surface approaches the conformaly infinity. In the paper we give the explicit expression of Graham-Witten's conformal invariant for closed four dimensional submanifolds and find critical points of the conformal invariant in the case of Euclidean ambient spaces…
In Part I, we develop the notions of a Moebius structure and a conformal Cartan geometry, establish an equivalence between them; we use them in Part II to study submanifolds of conformal manifolds in arbitrary dimension and codimension. We obtain Gauss-Codazzi-Ricci equations and a conformal Bonnet theorem characterizing immersed submanifolds of the conformal n-sphere. These methods are applied in Part III to study constrained Willmore surfaces, isothermic surfaces, Guichard surfaces and conformally-flat submanifolds with flat normal bundle, and their spectral deformations, in arbitrary codime…
In the realm of conformal geometry, we give a classification of the Euclidean hypersurfaces that admit a non-trivial conformal infinitesimal variation. In the restricted case of conformal variations, such a classification was obtained by E. Cartan in 1917. The case of infinitesimal isometric variations was done by U. Sbrana in 1908. In particular, we show that the class of hypersurfaces that allow a conformal infinitesimal variation is much larger than the one considered by Cartan.
A conformal structure on a manifold $M^n$ induces natural second order conformally invariant operators, called Möbius and Laplace structures, acting on specific weight bundles of $M$, provided that $n\ge 3$. By extending the notions of Möbius and Laplace structures to the case of surfaces and curves, we develop here the theory of extrinsic conformal geometry for submanifolds, find tensorial invariants of a conformal embedding, and use these invariants to characterize various forms of geodesic submanifolds.
The purpose of the present paper is to study the differential geometric properties of a quaternion CR-submanifold in a locally conformal quaternion Kaehler manifold.
We consider the significant class of holomorphically nondegenerate CR manifolds of finite type that are represented by some weighted homogeneous polynomials and we derive some useful features which enable us to set up a fast effective algorithm to compute their Lie algebras of infinitesimal CR-automorphisms. This algorithm mainly relies upon a natural gradation of the sought Lie algebras, and it also consists in treating separately the related graded components. While some other methods are based on constructing and solving an associated pde systems which become time consuming as soon as the n…
In this paper we present not only some properties related to bi-warped product submanifolds of locally conformal almost cosymplectic manifolds, but also we show how the squared norm of the second fundamental form and the bi-warped product's warping functions are related when the bi-warped product submanifold has a proper slant submanifold as a base or fiber.
The position vector field x is the most elementary and natural geometric object on a Euclidean submanifold $M$. The position vector field plays very important roles in mathematics as well as in physics. Similarly, the tangential component x^T of the position vector field is the most natural vector field tangent to the Euclidean submanifold $M$. We simply call the vector field x^T the \textit{canonical vector field} of the Euclidean submanifold M. In earlier articles, we investigated Euclidean submanifolds whose canonical vector fields are concurrent, concircular, or torse-forming. In this arti…
For every codimension two spacelike submanifold of a Lorentz manifold and each choice of a normal lightlike vector field, we introduce a canonical way to construct a tractor conformal bundle. We characterize when the induced connection of a such submanifold defines a tractor connection and then, in this case, when this tractor conformal bundle with the induced connection is standard for the induced metric. Finally, the normality condition for this tractor conformal bundle endowed with the induced connection is characterized in terms of a strong relationship between the intrinsic and the extrin…
In this paper, we give the Cartan's formula for half-lightlike submanifolds of Lorentzian manifolds and use it to show that a screen homothetic half-lightlike submanifolds of a Lorentzian space form, with a conformal co-screen distribution are locally a lightlike triple product manifolds. Then we give a classification theorem for half-lightlike submanifolds of Lorentzian space form with constant screen principal curvatures. These results extend some results obtained in the case of lightlike hypersurfaces of Lorentzian manifolds ([1]).
Let $f\colon M^{2n}\to\mathbb{R}^{2n+\ell}$, $n \geq 5$, denote a conformal immersion into Euclidean space with codimension $\ell$ of a Kaehler manifold of complex dimension $n$ and free of flat points. For codimensions $\ell=1,2$ we show that such a submanifold can always be locally obtained in a rather simple way, namely, from an isometric immersion of the Kaehler manifold $M^{2n}$ into either $\mathbb{R}^{2n+1}$ or $\mathbb{R}^{2n+2}$, the latter being a class of submanifolds already extensively studied.
In this note, we investigate conformally flat submanifolds of Euclidean space with positive index of relative nullity. Let $M^n$ be a complete conformally flat manifold and let $f\colon M^n\to \R^m$ be an isometric immersion. We prove the following results: (1) If the index of relative nullity is at least two, then $M^n$ is flat and $f$ is a cylinder over a flat submanifold. (2) If the scalar curvature of $M^n$ is non-negative and the index of relative nullity is positive, then $f$ is a cylinder over a submanifold with constant non-negative sectional curvature. (3) If the scalar curvature of $…
Using the theory of Weyl structures, we give a natural generalization of the notion of essential conformal structures and conformal Killing fields to arbitrary parabolic geometries. We show that a parabolic structure is inessential whenever the automorphism group acts properly on the base space. As a corollary of the generalized Ferrand-Obata theorem proved by C. Frances, this proves a generalization of the "Lichnerowicz conjecture" for conformal Riemannian, strictly pseudo-convex CR, and quaternionic/octonionic contact manifolds in positive-definite signature. For an infinitesimal automorphis…
The goal of the present paper is to investigate the algebraic structure of global conformal invariants of submanifolds. These are defined to be conformally invariant integrals of geometric scalars of the tangent and normal bundle. A famous example of a global conformal invariant is the Willmore energy of a surface. In codimension one we classify such invariants, showing that under a structural hypothesis (more precisely we assume the integrand depends separately on the intrinsic and extrinsic curvatures, and not on their derivatives) the integrand can only consist of an intrinsic scalar confor…
Rigidity of Lagrangian submanifolds with conformal Maslov form and Legendrian capillary boundary
Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture（北京建筑大学）；Chongqing University of Technology（重庆理工大学）；Tsinghua University（清华大学）；Xinyang Normal University（信阳师范大学）
There is a Lorenzian group acting on the conformal space ${\mathbb Q}^n_p$. We study the regular submanifolds in the conformal space ${\mathbb Q}^n_p$ and construct general submanifold theory in the conformal space ${\mathbb Q}^n_p$. Finally we give the first variation formula of the Willmore volume functional of submanifolds in the conformal space ${\mathbb Q}^n_p$ and classify the conformal isotropic submanifolds in the conformal space ${\mathbb Q}^n_p$.
In [2] we have classified the Blaschke quasi-umbilical submanifolds in the conformal space ${\mathbb Q}^n_s$. In this paper we shall classify the Blaschke para-umbilical hypersurfaces in the conformal space ${\mathbb Q}^n_s$. That may be also considered as the extension of the classification of the conformal isotropic submanifolds in the conformal space ${\mathbb Q}^n_s$.
We study the problem posed by F. Burstall of developing a theory of isothermic Euclidean submanifolds of dimension greater than or equal to three. As a natural extension of the definition in the surface case, we call a Euclidean submanifold {\it isothermic} if it is locally the image of a conformal immersion of a Riemannian product of Riemannian manifolds whose second fundamental form is adapted to the product net of the manifold. Our main result is a complete classification of all such conformal immersions of Riemannian products of dimension greater than or equal to three. We derive several c…
In this paper, we study submanifolds with constant $r$th mean curvature $S_r$. We investigate, the stability of such submanifolds in the case when they are leaves of a codimension one foliation. We also generalize recent results by Barros - Sousa and Alías - Colares, concerning conformal fields, to an arbitrary manifold. Using this we show that normal component of a Killing field is a $r$th Jacobi field of a submanifold with $S_{r+1}$ constant. Finally, we study relations between $r$th Jacobi fields and vector fields preserving a foliation.
A theorem of Lawson and Simons states that the only stable minimal submanifolds in complex projective spaces are complex submanifolds. We generalize their result to the cases of quaternionic and octonionic projective spaces. Our approach gives a unified viewpoint towards conformal and projective geometries.
Wintgen ideal submanifolds in space forms are those ones attaining equality pointwise in the so-called DDVV inequality which relates the scalar curvature, the mean curvature and the scalar normal curvature. They are Moebius invariant objects. The mean curvature sphere defines a conformal Gauss map into a Grassmann manifold. We show that any Wintgen ideal submanifold has a Riemannian submersion structure over a Riemann surface with the fibers being round spheres. Then the conformal Gauss map is shown to be a super-conformal and harmonic map from the underlying Riemann surface. Some of our previ…
This paper studies the relation between two notions of holonomy on a conformal manifold. The first is the conformal holonomy, defined to be the holonomy of the normal tractor connection. The second is the holonomy of the Fefferman-Graham ambient metric of the conformal manifold. It is shown that the infinitesimal conformal holonomy and the infinitesimal ambient holonomy always agree up to the order that the ambient metric is defined.
We study infinitesimal conformal deformations of a triangulated surface in Euclidean space and investigate the change in its extrinsic geometry. A deformation of vertices is conformal if it preserves length cross-ratios. On one hand, conformal deformations generalize deformations preserving edge lengths. On the other hand, there is a one-to-one correspondence between infinitesimal conformal deformations in space and infinitesimal isometric deformations of the stereographic image on the sphere. The space of infinitesimal conformal deformations can be parametrized in terms of the change in dihed…
In this paper, we introduce and study the conformal mean curvature flow of submanifolds of higher codimension in the Euclidean space $\bbr^n$. This kind of flow is a special case of a general modified mean curvature flow which is of various origination. As the main result, we prove a blow-up theorem concluding that, under the conformal mean curvature flow in $\bbr^n$, the maximum of the square norm of the second fundamental form of any compact submanifold tends to infinity in finite time. Furthermore, by using the idea of Andrews and Baker for studying the mean curvature flow of submanifolds i…
Infinitesimal conformal transformations of $R^n$ are always polynomial and finitely generated when $n>2$. Here we prove that the Lie algebra of infinitesimal conformal polynomial transformations over $R^n$, $n>1$, is maximal in the Lie algebra of polynomial vector fields. When $n$ is greater than 2 and $p,q$ are such that $p+q=n$, this implies the maximality of an embedding of $so(p+1,q+1,R)$ into polynomial vector fields that was revisited in recent works about equivariant quantizations. It also refines a similar but weaker theorem by V. I. Ogievetsky.
Degenerate submanifolds of pseudo-Riemannian manifolds are quite difficult to study because there is no prefered connection when the submanifold is not totally geodesic. For the particular case of degenerate totally umbilical hypersurfaces, we show that there are "Weyl" connections adapted to the induced structure on the hypersurface. We begin the study of these with their holonomy.
The generalized Feix--Kaledin construction shows that c-projective $2n$-manifolds with curvature of type $(1,1)$ are precisely the submanifolds of quaternionic $4n$-manifolds which are fixed points set of a special type of quaternionic $S^1$ action $v$. In this paper, we consider this construction in the presence of infinitesimal symmetries of the two geometries. First, we prove that the submaximally symmetric c-projective model with type $(1,1)$ curvature is a submanifold of a submaximally symmetric quaternionic model, and show how this fits into the construction. We give conditions for when …
The connected components of the zero set of any conformal vector field $v$, in a pseudo-Riemannian manifold $(M,g)$ of arbitrary signature, are of two types, which may be called `essential' and `nonessential'. The former consist of points at which $v$ is essential, that is, cannot be turned into a Killing field by a local conformal change of the metric. In a component of the latter type, points at which $v$ is nonessential form a relatively-open dense subset that is at the same time a totally umbilical submanifold of $(M,g)$. An essential component is always a null totally geodesic submanifold…
In this paper, we study deformations of coisotropic submanifolds in a locally conformal symplectic manifold. Firstly, we derive the equation that governs $C^\infty$ deformations of coisotropic submanifolds and define the corresponding $C^\infty$-moduli space of coisotropic submanifolds modulo the Hamiltonian isotopies. Secondly, we prove that the formal deformation problem is governed by an $L_\infty$-structure which is a $\frak b$-deformation of strong homotopy Lie algebroids introduced in Oh and Park (2005) in the symplectic context. Then we study deformations of locally conformal symplectic…
We extend the classical theory of isothermic surfaces in conformal 3-space, due to Bour, Christoffel, Darboux, Bianchi and others, to the more general context of submanifolds of symmetric $R$-spaces with essentially no loss of integrable structure.
Wintgen ideal submanifolds in space forms are those ones attaining equality at every point in the so-called DDVV inequality which relates the scalar curvature, the mean curvature and the normal scalar curvature. This property is conformal invariant; hence we study them in the framework of Moebius geometry, and restrict to three dimensional Wintgen ideal submanifolds in S^5. In particular we give Moebius characterizations for minimal ones among them, which are also known as (3-dimensional) austere submanifolds (in 5-dimensional space forms).
The Willmore energy, alias bending energy or rigid string action, and its variation-the Willmore invariant-are important surface conformal invariants with applications ranging from cell membranes to the entanglement entropy in quantum gravity. In work of Andersson, Chrusciel, and Friedrich, the same invariant arises as the obstruction to smooth boundary asymptotics to the Yamabe problem of finding a metric in a conformal class with constant scalar curvature. We use conformal geometry tools to describe and compute the asymptotics of the Yamabe problem on a conformally compact manifold and thus …
Nirenberg and Spencer posed the question whether the germ of a compact complex submanifold in a complex manifold is determined by its infinitesimal neighborhood of finite order when the normal bundle is sufficiently positive. To study the problem for a larger class of submanifolds, including free rational curves, we reformulate the question in the setting of families of submanifolds and their infinitesimal neighborhoods. When the submanifolds have no nonzero vector fields, we prove that it is sufficient to consider only first-order neighborhoods to have an affirmative answer to the reformulate…
