Let E be a natural operator associated to the curvature tensor of a pseudo-Riemannian manifold. This survey article studies when the spectrum, or more generally the real Jordan normal form, of E is constant on the natural domain of definition. It deals with results for the Jacobi operator, the higher order Jacobi operator, the Szabo operator, and the skew-symmetric curvature operator. Some results in the complex setting are presented as well for the skew-symmetric curvature operator.
Derdzinski and Shen's theorem on the restrictions posed by a Codazzi tensor on the Riemann tensor holds more generally when a Riemann-compatible tensor exists. Several properties are shown to remain valid in this broader setting. Riemann compatibility is equivalent to the Bianchi identity of the new "Codazzi deviation tensor" with a geometric significance. Examples are given of manifolds with Riemann-compatible tensors, in particular those generated by geodesic mapping. Compatibility is extended to generalized curvature tensors with an application to Weyl's tensor and general relativity.
The curvature tensor of a pseudo-Riemannian metric, and its covariant derivatives, satisfy certain identities that hold on any manifold of dimension less or equal than $n$. In this paper, we re-elaborate recent results by Gilkey-Park-Sekigawa regarding $p$-covariant dimensional curvature identities, for $p=0,2$. To this end, we use the classical theory of natural operations, that allows us to simplify some arguments and to generalize the description of Gilkey-Park-Sekigawa. Thus, our main result describes the first space of $p$-covariant dimensional curvature identities, for any even $p$.
In this survey article we review several results on the curvature of semi-Riemannian metrics which are motivated by the positive mass theorem. The main themes are estimates of the Riemann tensor of an asymptotically flat manifold and the construction of Lorentzian metrics which satisfy the dominant energy condition.
The nonlinear equations describing all the nonsingular pencils of metrics of constant Riemannian curvature are derived and the integrability of these nonlinear equations by the method of inverse scattering problem is proved. It is proved that all the nonsingular pairs of compatible metrics of constant Riemannian curvature are described by special integrable reductions of nonlinear equations defining orthogonal curvilinear coordinate systems in the spaces of constant curvature.
Using a new type of Jacobi field estimate we will prove a duality theorem for singular Riemannian foliations in complete manifolds of nonnegative sectional curvature.
For an arbitrary nondegenerate curve in a pseudo-Riemann\-ian (including Riemannian) 2-manifold, we express the equi-affine curvature with the help of the Frenet (geodesic) curvature of this curve.
The Riemann curvature tensor is a central mathematical tool in Einstein's theory of general relativity. Its related eigenproblem plays an important role in mathematics and physics. We extend M-eigenvalues for the elasticity tensor to the Riemann curvature tensor. The definition of M-eigenproblem of the Riemann curvature tensor is introduced from the minimization of an associated function. The M-eigenvalues of the Riemann curvature tensor always exist and are real. They are invariants of the Riemann curvature tensor. The associated function of the Riemann curvature tensor is always positive at …
Analogously to the concept of a curvature of curve and surface, in the differential geometry, in the main part of this paper the concept of the curvature of the hyper-dimensional vector spaces of Riemannian metric is generally defined. The defined concept of the curvature of Riemannian spaces of higher dimensions M: M>1, in the further text of the paper, is functional related to the fundamental parameters of an internal geometry of space, more exactly, to components of Riemann-Christoffel's tensor of curvature. At the end, analogously to the concept of lines of curvature in the differential ge…
Let $M^n$ be a complete, non-compact and $C^\infty$-smooth Riemannian manifold with nonnegative sectional curvature. Suppose $\Cal S$ is a soul of $M^n$. Then any distance non-increasing retraction $Ψ: M^n \to \Cal S$ must give rise to a $C^\infty$-smooth Riemannian submersion.
For k at least 2, we exhibit complete k-curvature homogeneous neutral signature pseudo-Riemannian manifolds which are not locally affine homogeneous (and hence not locally homogeneous). The curvature tensor of these manifolds is modeled on that of an indecomposible symmetric space. All the local scalar Weyl curvature invariants of these manifolds vanish.
The recently introduced Lipschitz-Killing curvature measures on pseudo-Riemannian manifolds satisfy a Weyl principle, i.e. are invariant under isometric embeddings. We show that they are uniquely characterized by this property. We apply this characterization to prove a Künneth-type formula for Lipschitz-Killing curvature measures, and to classify the invariant generalized valuations and curvature measures on all isotropic pseudo-Riemannian space forms.
The curvature tensor and the scalar curvature are computed in the space of positive definite real matrices endowed by the Kubo-Mori inner product as a Riemannian metric.
We give a classification for connected complete locally irreducible Riemannian manifolds with nonpositive curvature operator, which admit a nonzero closed or co-closed conformal Killing $L^{2}-$form. Moreover, we prove vanishing theorems for closed and co-closed conformal Killing $L^{2}-$forms on some complete Riemannian manifolds.
The largest class of Riemannian almost product manifolds, which is closed with respect to the group of the conformal transformations of the Riemannian metric, is the class of the conformal Riemannian P-manifolds. This class is an analogue of the class of the conformal Kähler manifolds in almost Hermitian geometry. The main aim of this work is to obtain properties of manifolds of this class with connections, whose curvature tensors have similar properties as the Kähler tensors in Hermitian geometry.
This paper presents an investigation of the relation between some positivity of the curvature and the finiteness of fundamental groups in semi-Riemannian geometry. We consider semi-Riemannian submersions $π: (E, g) \rightarrow (B, -g_{B}) $ under the condition with $(B, g_{B})$ Riemannian, the fiber closed Riemannian, and the horizontal distribution integrable. Then we prove that, if the lightlike geodesically complete or timelike geodesically complete semi-Riemannian manifold $E$ has some positivity of curvature, then the fundamental group of the fiber is finite. Moreover we construct an exam…
Let $(M, g)$ be an asymptotically flat Riemannian $3$-manifold with non-negative scalar curvature and positive mass. We show that each leaf of the canonical foliation through stable constant mean curvature surfaces of the end of $(M, g)$ is uniquely isoperimetric for the volume it encloses.
We introduce the concept of singular values for the Riemann curvature tensor, a central mathematical tool in Einstein's theory of general relativity. We study the properties related to the singular values, and investigate five typical cases to show its relationship to the Ricci scalar and other invariants.
We study the spectral geometry of the Riemann curvature tensor for Pseudo-Riemannian manifolds and provide some examples illustrating the phenomena which can arise in the higher signature setting. Dedication: This paper is dedicated to the memory of our colleague Prof.G. Tsagas who studied the spectral geometry of Laplacian.
In this paper, we determine the partial positivity(resp., negativity) of the curvature of all irreducible Riemannian symmetric spaces. From the classifications of abstract root systems and maximal subsystems, we can give the calculations for symmetric spaces both in classical types and in exceptional types.
We introduce a new approach for computing curvature of sub-Riemannian manifolds. Curvature is here meant as symplectic invariants of Jacobi curves of geodesics, as introduced by Zelenko and Li. We describe how they can be expressed using a compatible affine connection and induced tensors, without any restriction on our sub-Riemannian manifold or the choice of connection. In particular, we obtain a universal Bonnet-Myers theorem of Riemannian type. We also give universal formulas for the canonical horizontal frame along each geodesic and an algorithm for computing the curvature in general. Seve…
In this article we give a complete description of the evolution of an area decreasing map $f:M\to N$ induced by its mean curvature in the situation where $M$ and $N$ are complete Riemann surfaces with bounded geometry, $M$ being compact, for which their sectional curvatures $σ_M$, $σ_N$ satisfy $\minσ_M\ge\supσ_N$.
A zero mean curvature surface in the Lorentz-Minkowski 3-space is said to be of Riemann-type if it is foliated by circles and at most countably many straight lines in parallel planes. We classify all zero mean curvature surfaces of Riemann-type according to their causal characters, and as a corollary, we prove that if a zero mean curvature surface of Riemann-type has exactly two causal characters, then the lightlike part of the surface is a part of a straight line.
We study the isometry groups and Killing vector fields of a family of pseudo-Riemannian metrics on Euclidean space which have neutral signature (3+2p,3+2p). All are p+2 curvature homogeneous, all have vanishing Weyl scalar invariants, all are geodesically complete, and all are 0-curvature modeled on an indecomposible symmetric space. Some of these manifolds are not p+3 curvature homogeneous. Some are homogeneous but not symmetric.
By constructing an ODE through a kind of meromorphic 1-forms, we will give an explicit construction of a kind of conformal metrics of constant curvature on Riemann surfaces with singularities. As an application, we will classify constant curvature one metrics on $S^{2}$ with two conical singularities, which was first proved by Troyanov in \cite{Tr89} by using projective connection.
We associate to any Riemannian symmetric space (of finite or infinite dimension) a L$^*$-algebra, under the assumption that the curvature operator has a fixed sign. L$^*$-algebras are Lie algebras with a pleasant Hilbert space structure. The L$^*$-algebra that we construct is a complete local isomorphism invariant and allows us to classify Riemannian symmetric spaces with fixed-sign curvature operator. The case of nonpositive curvature is emphasized.
We show that on every ${\sf RCD}$ spaces it is possible to introduce, by a distributional-like approach, a Riemann curvature tensor. Since after the works of Petrunin and Zhang-Zhu we know that finite dimensional Alexandrov spaces are ${\sf RCD}$ spaces, our construction applies in particular to the Alexandrov setting. We conjecture that an ${\sf RCD}$ space is Alexandrov if and only if the sectional curvature - defined in terms of such abstract Riemann tensor - is bounded from below.
In this short note, we investigate the effect of the local fractional derivatives on the Riemann curvature tensor that is a common tool in calculating curvature of a Riemannian manifold. For this, first we introduce a general local fractional derivative operator that involves the mostly used ones in the literature as conformable, alternative, truncated $M-$ and $\mathcal{V}-$fractional derivatives. Then, according to this general operator, a particular Riemannian metric tensor field on the real affine space $\mathbb{R}^{n}$ that is different than Euclidean one is defined. In conlusion, we obta…
The mixed scalar curvature is one of the simplest curvature invariants of a foliated Riemannian manifold. We explore the problem of prescribing the mixed scalar curvature of a foliated Riemann-Cartan manifold by conformal change of the structure in tangent and normal to the leaves directions. Under certain geometrical assumptions and in two special cases: along a compact leaf and for a closed fibred manifold, we reduce the problem to solution of a leafwise elliptic equation, which has three stable solutions -- only one of them corresponds to the case of a foliated Riemannian manifold.
We give manifolds in both the Riemannian and in the higher signature settings whose Riemann curvature operators commute, i.e. which satisfy R(a,b)R(c,d)=R(c,d)R(a,b) for all tangent vectors. These manifolds have global geometric phenomena which are quite different for higher signature manifolds than they are for Riemannian manifolds. Our focus is on global properties; questions of geodesic completeness and the behaviour of the exponential map are investigated.
A Riemannian manifold is called IP, if the eigenvalues of its skew-symmetric curvature operator are pointwise constant. It was previously shown that for all n\ge 4, except n=7, any IP manifold either has constant curvature, or is a warped product, with some specific function, of a line and a space of constant curvature. We extend this result to the case n = 7, and also study 3-dimensional IP manifolds.
In this survey, we study three different notions of curvature that are defined on graphs, namely, combinatorial curvature, Bakry-Émery curvature, and Ollivier's Ricci curvature. For each curvature notion, the definition and its motivation from Riemannian geometry will be explained. Moreover, we bring together some global results and geometric concepts in Riemannian geometry that are related to curvature (e.g. Bonnet-Myers theorem, Laplacian operator, Lichnerowicz theorem, Cheeger constant), and then compare them to the discrete analogues in some (if not all) of the discrete curvature notions. …
Sub-Riemannian structures on odd-dimensional spheres respecting the Hopf fibration naturally appear in quantum mechanics. We study the curvature maps for such a sub-Riemannian structure and express them using the Riemannian curvature tensor of the Fubini-Study metric of the complex projective space and the curvature form of the Hopf fibration. We also estimate the number of conjugate points of a sub-Riemannian extremal in terms of the bounds of the sectional curvature and the curvature form. It presents a typical example for the study of curvature maps and comparison theorms for a general cora…
Each sub-Riemannian geometry with bracket generating distribution enjoys a background structure determined by the distribution itself. At the same time, those geometries with constant sub-Riemannian symbols determine a unique Cartan connection leading to their principal invariants. We provide cohomological description of the structure of these curvature invariants in the cases where the background structure is one of the parabolic geometries. As an illustration, constant curvature models are discussed for certain sub-Riemannian geometries.
We glue two manifolds which have curvature operators at least k (in the sense of eigenvalues) along their common boundary. We show that if the sum of the second fundamental forms of the boundary is positive semidefinite, then the curvature operator of the resulting manifold is at least k up to an arbitrarily small error term. Similar results hold for Ricci, scalar, bi, isotropic and flag curvature, respectively.
A diffeomorphism of pseudo-Riemannian manifolds is called sectional curvature preserving if it preserves the sectional curvature of all the nondegenerate 2-planes. We consider a similar condition for degenerate 2-planes and we prove that the diffeomorphism is conformal (when the condition is fulfilled for weakly degenerate planes) or an isometry (when the condition is fulfilled for strongly degenerate 2-planes).
Some invariant tensors in two Naveira classes of Riemannian product manifolds are considered. These tensors are related with natural connections, i.e. linear connections preserving the Riemannian metric and the product structure.
The flag curvature of a Finsler metric is called a Riemannian quantity because it is an extension of sectional curvature in Riemannian geometry. In Finsler geometry, there are several non-Riemannian quantities such as the (mean) Cartan torsion, the (mean) Landsberg curvature and the S-curvature, which all vanish for Riemannian metrics. It is important to understand the geometric meanings of these quantities. In this paper, we study Finsler metrics of scalar curvature (i.e., the flag curvature is a scalar function on the slit tangent bundle) and partially determine the flag curvature when certa…
Let $π{:}\,(M,\mathcal{H})\to (B,b)$ be a submersion equipped with a horizontal connection $\cal H$ over a Riemannian manifold $(B,b)$. We present an intrinsic curvature condition that only depends on the pair $(\cal H,b)$. By studying a set of relative flat planes, we prove that a certain class of pairs $(\cal H,b)$ admits a compatible metric with positive sectional curvature only if they are \textit{fat}, verifying Wilhelm's Conjecture in this class.
Given the Riemann, or the Weyl, or a generalized curvature tensor K, a symmetric tensor $b_{ij}$ is named `compatible' with the curvature tensor if $b_i{}^m K_{jklm} + b_j{}^m K_{kilm} + b_k{}^m K_{ijlm} = 0$. Amongst showing known and new properties, we prove that they form a special Jordan algebra, i.e. the symmetrized product of K-compatible tensors is K-compatible.
We generalized Xiang, Qi and Wei's results on the M-eigenvalues of Riemann curvature tensor to higher dimensional conformal flat manifolds. The expression of M-eigenvalues and M-eigenvectors are found in our paper. As a special case, M-eigenvalues of conformal flat Einstein manifold have also been discussed, and the conformal the invariance of M-eigentriple has been found. We also discussed the relationship between M-eigenvalue and sectional curvature of a Riemannian manifold. We proved that the M-eigenvalue can determine the Riemann curvature tensor uniquely and generalize the real M-eigenval…
Square metrics is an important class of Finsler metrics. Recently, we introduced a special class of non-regular Finsler metrics called singular square metrics. The main purpose of this paper is to provide a necessary and sufficient condition for singular square metrics to be of constant Ricci or flag curvature when dimension $n\geq3$.
Gromov and Sormani conjectured that sequences of compact Riemannian manifolds with nonnegative scalar curvature and area of minimal surfaces bounded below should have subsequences which converge in the intrinsic flat sense to limit spaces which have nonnegative generalized scalar curvature and Euclidean tangent cones almost everywhere. In this paper we prove this conjecture for sequences of rotationally symmetric warped product manifolds. We show that the limit spaces have $H^1$ warping function that has nonnegative scalar curvature in a weak sense, and have Euclidean tangent cones almost ever…
Let M be a compact Riemannian manifold and E a Riemannian vector bundle on M. We look for hypersurfaces of E with a prescribed vertical Gaussian curvature. In trying to solve this problem fibre-wise, we loose the regularity of the resulting solution. To unsure the smoothness of the solution, we construct it as a radial graph over the unit sphere subbundle of E and prove its existence by solving in this one a nonlinear partial differential equation of Monge-Ampère type.
We consider the problem of conformally deforming a metric to one with a prescribed symmetric function of the eigenvalues of the Ricci tensor, in the case of negative curvature.
We prove the existence of metrics with prescribed $Q$-curvature under natural assumptions on the sign of the prescribing function and the background metric. In the dimension four case, we also obtain existence results for curvature forms requiring only restrictions on the Euler characteristic. Moreover, we derive a prescription result for open submanifolds which allow us to conclude that any smooth function on $\mathbb{R}^n$ can be realized as the $Q$-curvature of a Riemannian metric.
Let $M$ be a complete Riemannian manifold possessing a strictly convex Lipschitz continuous exhaustion function. We show that the isoperimetric profile of $M$ is a continuous and non-decreasing function. Particular cases are Hadamard manifolds and complete non-compact manifolds with strictly positive sectional curvatures.
We compare different notions of curvature on contact sub-Riemannian manifolds. In particular we introduce canonical curvatures as the coefficients of the sub-Riemannian Jacobi equation. The main result is that all these coefficients are encoded in the asymptotic expansion of the horizontal derivatives of the sub-Riemannian distance. We explicitly compute their expressions in terms of the standard tensors of contact geometry. As an application of these results, we obtain a sub-Riemannian version of the Bonnet-Myers theorem that applies to any contact manifold.
Let $X$ be a compact connected Riemann surface of genus $g\geq 0$, and let ${\rm Sym}^d(X)$, $d \ge 1$, denote the $d$-fold symmetric product of $X$. We show that ${\rm Sym}^d(X)$ admits a Hermitian metric with negative Chern scalar curvature if and only if $g \geq 2$, and positive Chern scalar curvature if and only if $d > g$.
We prove comparison theorems for the sub-Riemannian distortion coefficients appearing in interpolation inequalities. These results, which are equivalent to a sub-Laplacian comparison theorem for the sub-Riemannian distance, are obtained by introducing a suitable notion of sub-Riemannian Bakry-Émery curvature. The model spaces for comparison are variational problems coming from optimal control theory. As an application we establish the sharp measure contraction property for 3-Sasakian manifolds satisfying a suitable curvature bound.
For Riemannian submersions with fibers of basic mean curvature, we compare the spectrum of the total space with the spectrum of a Schrödinger operator on the base manifold. Exploiting this concept, we study submersions arising from actions of Lie groups. In this context, we extend the state of the art results on the bottom of the spectrum under Riemannian coverings. As an application, we compute the bottom of the spectrum and the Cheeger constant of connected, amenable Lie groups.
Let (X,g) be a metrically complete, simply connected Riemannian manifold with bounded geometry and pinched negative curvature, i.e. there are constants a>b>0 such that -a^2<K<-b^2 for all sectional curvatures K. Here bounded geometry is used in the sense that all covariant derivatives of the Riemannian curvature tensor are bounded and the injectivity radius is uniformly bounded below by a positive constant. We show that there are no superexponentially decaying eigenfunctions of the Laplacian of g. We also show the analogous conclusion for other geometric operators, and prove a theorem with the…
We illustrate the flow or wave character of the metrics and curvatures of evolving manifolds, introducing the Riemann flow and the Riemann wave via the bialternate product Riemannian metric. This kind of evolutions are new and very natural to understand certain flow or wave phenomena in the nature as well as the geometry of evolving manifolds. It possesses many interesting properties from both mathematical and physical point of views. We reveal the novel features of Riemann flow and Riemann wave, as well as their versatility, by new original results. The main results refer to: (1) Riemann flow…
In this note, we prove that the abstract gradient flow introduced by Baird-Fardoun-Regbaoui \cite{BFR}is well-posed on a closed Riemann surface with conical singularity. Long time existence and convergence of the flow are proved under certain assumptions. As an application, the prescribed Gaussian curvature problem is solved when the singular Euler characteristic of the conical surface is non-positive.
In this note we establish the large time non-negativity of the heat kernel for a class of elliptic differential operators on closed, Riemannian manifolds, and apply this result to a problem from conformal differential geometry.
