In this paper we continue the study of bi-conformal vector fields started in {\em Class. Quantum Grav.} {\bf 21} 2153-2177. These are vector fields defined on a pseudo-Riemannian manifold by the differential conditions $\lie P_{ab}=ϕP_{ab}$, $\lieΠ_{ab}=χΠ_{ab}$ where $P_{ab}$, $Π_{ab}$ are orthogonal and complementary projectors with respect to the metric tensor $\rmg_{ab}$ and $\lie$ is the Lie derivative. In a previous paper we explained how the analysis of these differential conditions enabled us to derive local geometric characterizations of the most relevant cases of {\em conformally separable} (also called double twisted) pseudo Riemannian manifolds. In this paper we carry on this analysis further and provide local invariant characterizations of conformally separable pseudo-Riemannian manifolds with {\em conformally flat} leaf metrics. These characterizations are rather similar to that existing for conformally flat pseudo-Riemannian manifolds but instead of the Weyl tensor, we must demand the vanishing of certain four rank tensors constructed from the curvature of an affine, non-metric, connection (bi-conformal connection). We also speculate with possible applications to finding results for the existence of foliations by conformally flat hypersurfaces in any pseudo-Riemannian manifold.
In this paper a thorough study of the normal form and the first integrability conditions arising from {\em bi-conformal vector fields} is presented. These new symmetry transformations were introduced in {\em Class. Quantum Grav.}\textbf{21}, 2153-2177 and some of their basic properties were addressed there. Bi-conformal vector fields are defined on a pseudo-Riemannian manifold through the differential conditions $\lie P_{ab}=ϕP_{ab}$ and $\lieΠ_{ab}=χΠ_{ab}$ where $P_{ab}$ and $Π_{ab}$ are orthogonal and complementary projectors with respect to the metric tensor $\rmg_{ab}$. One of the main re…
We study the spectral geometry of the conformal Jacobi operator on a 4-dimensional Riemannian manifold (M,g). We show that (M,g) is conformally Osserman if and only if (M,g) is self-dual or anti self-dual. Equivalently, this means that the curvature tensor of (M,g) is given by a quaternionic structure, at least pointwise.
This is the first of two companion papers in which a thorough study of the normal form and the first integrability conditions arising from {\em bi-conformal vector fields} is presented. These new symmetry transformations were introduced in {\em Class. Quantum Grav.} \textbf{21}, 2153-2177 and some of their basic properties were addressed there. In our calculations a new affine connection ({\em bi-conformal connection}) arises quite naturally and this connection enables us to find a local characterization of {\em conformally separable} pseudo-Riemannian manifolds (also called double twisted pro…
We classify the harmonic morphisms with one-dimensional fibres (1) from real-analytic conformally-flat Riemannian manifolds of dimension at least four, and (2) between conformally-flat Riemannian manifolds of dimensions at least three.
Necessary and sufficient conditions for a Riemannian product to be conformally equivalent to an Einstein manifold are given. Such spaces which are complete are characterized.
We consider four dimensional conformally flat homogeneous pseudo Riemannian manifolds. According to forms (Seger types) of the Ricci operator, we provide a full classification of four dimensional pseudo Riemannian conformally flat homogeneous Ricci solitons.
We find the index of $\widetilde{\nabla}$-quasi-conformally symmetric and $\widetilde{\nabla}$-concircularly symmetric semi-Riemannian manifolds, where $\widetilde{\nabla}$ is metric connection.
Conformally flat pseudo-Riemannian manifolds with generalized Ricci recurrent, $(GR)_n$ structure are completely classified in this short report. A conformally flat generalized Ricci recurrent pseudo-Riemannian manifold is shown to be either a de Sitter space or an anti-de Sitter space. In particular, a conformally flat generalized Ricci recurrent spacetime must be either a de Sitter spacetime or an anti-de Sitter spacetime.
Conformally variational Riemannian invariants (CVIs), such as the scalar curvature, are homogeneous scalar invariants which arise as the gradient of a Riemannian functional. We establish a wide range of stability and rigidity results involving CVIs, generalizing many such results for the scalar curvature.
A local classification of locally conformal flat Riemannian Einstein-like four-manifolds as well as a local classification of all locally conformal flat Riemannian four-manifolds for which all Jacobi operators have parallel eigenspaces along every geodesic is given. Non-trivial explicit examples are presented. The problem of local description of self-dual Einstein-like four-manifolds is also treated. A complete explicit solution of the Stäckel system in dimension four is obtained.
A Riemannian or pseudo-Riemannian (or conformal) structure is conformally Einstein if and only if there is a suitably generic parallel section of a certain vector bundle -- the so-called standard conformal tractor bundle. We show that this characterisation leads to a systematic approach to constructing obstructions to conformally Einstein metrics. Relaxing the requirement that the parallel tractor field be generic gives a natural generalisation of the Einstein equations.
In this paper we prove that every Riemannian metric on a locally conformally flat manifold with umbilic boundary can be conformally deformed to a scalar flat metric having constant mean curvature. This result can be seen as a generalization to higher dimensions of the well known Riemann mapping Theorem in the plane.
A necessary and sufficient condition for the leaves of a {\em non-degenerate} foliation of a pseudo-Riemannian manifold to be conformally flat is developed. The condition mimics the classical condition of the vanishing of the Weyl or Cotton tensor establishing the conformal flatness of a pseudo-Riemannian manifold in the sense that it is also formulated in terms of the vanishing of certain tensors. These tensors play the role of the Weyl or the Cotton tensors and they are defined in terms of the the curvature of a linear torsion-free connection (the {\em bi-conformal connection}).
We prove the existence of smooth closed hypersurfaces of prescribed mean curvature homeomorphic to $S^n$ for small $n, n\le6$, provided there are barriers.
We produce some explicit examples of conformally compact Einstein manifolds, whose conformal compactifications are foliated by Riemannian products of a closed Einstein manifold with the total space of a principal circle bundle over products of Kahler-Einstein manifolds. We compute the associated conformal invariants, i.e., the renormalized volume in even dimensions and the conformal anomaly in odd dimensions. As a by-product, we obtain some Riemannian products with vanishing Q-curvature.
Conformally quasi-recurrent (CQR)_n pseudo-Riemannian manifolds are investigated, and several new results are obtained. It is shown that the Ricci tensor and the gradient of the fundamental vector are Weyl compatible tensors (the notion was introduced recently by the authors and applies to significative space-times), (CQR)_n manifolds with concircular fundamental vector are quasi-Einstein. For 4-dimensional (CQR)$_4$ Lorentzian manifolds the fundamental vector is null and unique up to a scaling, it is an eigenvector of the Ricci tensor, and its integral curves are geodesics. Such space-times a…
The defining equations for Killing vector fields and conformal Killing vector fields are overdetermined systems of PDE. This makes it difficult to solve the systems numerically. We propose an approach which reduces the computation to the solution of a symmetric eigenvalue problem. The eigenvalue problem is then solved by finite element techniques. The formulation itself is valid in any dimension and for arbitrary compact Riemannian manifolds. The numerical results which validate the method are given in two dimensional case.
We present a set of global invariants, called "mass integrals", which can be defined for a large class of asymptotically hyperbolic Riemannian manifolds. When the "boundary at infinity" has spherical topology one single invariant is obtained, called the mass; we show positivity thereof. We apply the definition to conformally compactifiable manifolds, and show that the mass is completion-independent. We also prove the result, closely related to the problem at hand, that conformal completions of conformally compactifiable manifolds are unique.
Riemannian manifolds of quasi-constant sectional curvatures (QC-manifolds) are divided into two basic classes: with positive or negative horizontal sectional curvatures. We prove that the Riemannian QC-manifolds with positive horizontal sectional curvatures are locally equivalent to canal hypersurfaces in Euclidean space, while the Riemannian QC-manifolds with negative horizontal sectional curvatures are locally equivalent to canal space-like hypersurfaces in Minkowski space. We prove that the local theory of conformally flat Riemannian manifolds, which can be locally isometrically embedded as…
We define a conformally invariant action S on gauge connections on a closed pseudo-Riemannian manifold M of dimension 6. At leading order this is quadratic in the gauge connection. The Euler-Lagrange equations of S, with respect to variation of the gauge connection, provide a higher-order conformally invariant analogue of the (source-free) Yang-Mills equations. For any gauge connection A on M, we define S(A) by first defining a Lagrangian density associated to A. This is not conformally invariant but has a conformal transformation analogous to a Q-curvature. Integrating this density provides t…
The problem of characterizing conformally Einstein manifolds by tensorial conditions has been tackled recently in papers by M. Listing, and in work by A. R. Gover and P. Nurowski. Their results apply to metrics satisfying a "non-degeneracy" condition on the Weyl tensor \W. We investigate the geometry of the foliations arising on conformally Einstein spaces (with Riemannian signature) where this condition fails, which then allows us to characterize a general class of locally conformally Einstein Riemannian manifolds with degenerate Weyl tensor.
We construct a natural conformally invariant one-form of weight $-2k$ on any $2k$-dimensional pseudo-Riemannian manifold which is closely related to the Pfaffian of the Weyl tensor. On oriented manifolds, we also construct natural conformally invariant one-forms of weight $-4k$ on any $4k$-dimensional pseudo-Riemannian manifold which are closely related to top degree Pontrjagin forms. The weight of these forms implies that they define functionals on the space of conformal Killing fields. On Riemannian manifolds, we show that this functional is trivial for the former form but not for the latter…
First, we show that a warped product of a line and a fiber manifold is weakly conformally flat and quasi Einstein if and only if the fiber is Einstein. Next, we characterize and classify contact (in particular, $K$-contact) Riemannian manifold satisfying weakly (and doubly weakly) conformally flat and quasi-Einstein ($η$-Einstein) conditions. Finally, we provide local classification and characterization of a semi-Riemannian (including the 4-dimensional spacetime) with harmonic Weyl tensor and a non-homothetic conformal (including closed) vector field, in terms of Petrov types and Bach tensor.
We prove a universal lower bound for the $L^{n/2}$-norm of the Weyl tensor in terms of the Betti numbers for compact $n$-dimensional Riemannian manifolds that are conformally immersed as hypersurfaces in the Euclidean space. As a consequence, we determine the homology of almost conformally flat hypersurfaces. Furthermore, we provide a necessary condition for a compact Riemannian manifold to admit an isometric minimal immersion as a hypersurface in the sphere and extend a result due to Shiohama and Xu \cite{SX} for compact hypersurfaces in any space form.
We study locally conformally Berwald metrics on closed manifolds which are not globally conformally Berwald. We prove that the characterization of such metrics is equivalent to characterizing incomplete, simply-connected, Riemannian manifolds with reducible holonomy group whose quotient by a group of homotheties is closed. We further prove a de Rham type splitting theorem which states that if such a manifold is analytic, it is isometric to the Riemannian product of a Euclidean space and an incomplete manifold.
We give a notion of compatibility between a Riemannian structure and a Jacobi structure. We prove that in case of fundamental examples of Jacobi structures : Poisson structures, contact structures and locally conformally symplectic structures, we get respectively Riemann-Poisson structures in the sense of M. Boucetta, 1/2-Kenmotsu structures and locally conformally Kahler structures.
We show that if a compact connected $n$-dimensional manifold $M$ has a conformal class containing two non-homothetic metrics $g$ and $\tilde g=e^{2φ}g$ with non-generic holonomy, then after passing to a finite covering, either $n=4$ and $(M,g,\tilde g)$ is an ambikähler manifold, or $n\ge 6$ is even and $(M,g,\tilde g)$ is obtained by the Calabi Ansatz from a polarized Hodge manifold of dimension $n-2$, or both $g$ and $\tilde g$ have reducible holonomy, $M$ is locally diffeomorphic to a product $M_1\times M_2\times M_3$, the metrics $g$ and $\tilde g$ can be written as $g=g_1+g_2+e^{-2φ}g_3$ …
In the first part of this note we study compact Riemannian manifolds (M,g) whose Riemannian product with R is conformally Einstein. We then consider compact 6--dimensional almost Hermitian manifolds of type W_1+W_4 in the Gray--Hervella classification admitting a parallel vector field and show that (under some regularity assumption) they are obtained as mapping tori of isometries of compact Sasaki-Einstein 5-dimensional manifolds. In particular, we obtain examples of inhomogeneous locally (non-globally) conformal nearly Kähler compact manifolds.
Spinor representations of surfaces immersed into 4-dimensional pseudo-riemannian manifolds are defined in terms of minimal left ideals and tensor decompositions of Clifford algebras. The classification of spinor fields and Dirac operators on the immersed surfaces is given. The Dirac-Hestenes spinor field on surfaces immersed into Lorentzian manifolds and on surfaces conformally immersed into Minkowski spacetime is defined.
The non-existence of non-trivial conformally symmetric manifolds in the three-dimensional Riemannian setting is shown. In Lorentzian signature, a complete local classification is obtained. Furthermore, the isometry classes are examined.
We prove that for each closed smooth spin 4-manifold M there exists a closed smooth 4-manifold N such that the connected sum M # N admits a conformally flat Riemannian metric.
This paper presents conformal invariants for Riemannian manifolds of dimension greater than or equal to four whose vanishing is necessary for a Riemannian manifold to be conformally related to an Einstein space. One of the invariants is a modification of the Cotton tensor, the other is a $n$--dimensional version of the Bach tensor. In general both tensors are smooth only on an open and dense subset of $M$, but this subset is invariant under conformal transformations. Moreover, we generalize the main result of "Conformal Einstein Spaces in $N$--Dimensions" published in \emph{Ann. Global Anal. G…
Recently, the old notion of causal boundary for a spacetime V has been redefined in a consistent way. The computation of this boundary $\partial V$ for a standard conformally stationary spacetime V = R x M, suggests a natural compactification $M_B$ associated to any Riemannian metric on M or, more generally, to any Finslerian one. The corresponding boundary $\partial_B M$ is constructed in terms of Busemann-type functions. Roughly, $\partial_B M$ represents the set of all the directions in M including both, asymptotic and "finite" (or "incomplete") directions. This Busemann boundary $\partial_…
This is a final step in a local classification of pseudo-Riemannian manifolds with parallel Weyl tensor that are not conformally flat or locally symmetric.
In a joint work with Saji, the second and the third authors gave an intrinsic formulation of wave fronts and proved a realization theorem of wave fronts in space forms. As an application, we show that the following four objects are essentially same; * conformally flat n-manifolds (n>=3) with admissible singular points (i.e. admissible GCF-manifolds), * frontals as hypersurfaces in the lightcone Q^{n+1}_+, * frontals as hypersurfaces in the hyperbolic space H^{n+1}, * sapacelike frontals as hypersurfaces in the de Sitter space S^{n+1}_1. Recently, the duality of conformally flat Riemannian mani…
The local classification of conformally flat Lorentzian manifolds with special holonomy groups is obtained. The corresponding local metrics are certain extensions of Riemannian spaces of constant sectional curvature to Walker metrics.
In this paper we establish existence and compactness of solutions to a general fully nonlinear version of the Yamabe problem on locally conformally flat Riemannian manifolds with umbilic boundary.
On conformal manifolds of even dimension $n\geq 4$ we construct a family of new conformally invariant differential complexes. Each bundle in each of these complexes appears either in the de Rham complex or in its dual. Each of the new complexes is elliptic if the signature is Riemannian. We also construct gauge companion operators which complete the exterior derivative to a conformally invariant and (in the case of Riemannian signature) elliptically coercive system. These (operator,gauge) pairs are used to define finite dimensional conformally stable form subspaces which are are candidates for…
In a preceding paper we introduced a notion of compatibility between a Jacobi structure and a Riemannian structure on a smooth manifold. We proved that in the case of fundamental examples of Jacobi structures : Poisson structures, contact structures and locally conformally symplectic structures, we get respectively Riemann-Poisson structures in the sense of M. Boucetta, (1/2)-Kenmotsu structures and locally conformally Kähler structures. In this paper we are generalizing this work to the framework of Lie algebroids.
Motivated by considerations of euclidean quantum gravity, we investigate a central question of spectral geometry, namely the question of reconstructability of compact Riemannian manifolds from the spectra of their Laplace operators. To this end, we study analytic paths of metrics that induce isospectral Laplace-Beltrami operators over oriented compact surfaces without boundary. Applying perturbation theory, we show that sets of conformally equivalent metrics on such surfaces contain no nontrivial convex subsets. This indicates that cases where the manifolds cannot be reconstructed from their s…
This is the original manuscript dated March 9th 1983, typeset by the Editors for the Proceedings of the Midwest Geometry Conference 2007 held in memory of Thomas Branson. Stephen Paneitz passed away on September 1st 1983 while attending a conference in Clausthal and the manuscript was never published. For more than 20 years these few pages were circulated informally. In November 2004, as a service to the mathematical community, Tom Branson added a scan of the manuscript to his website. Here we make it available more formally. It is surely one of the most cited unpublished articles. The differe…
Consider a smooth manifold $M$ equipped with a bracket generating distribution $D$. Two sub-Riemannian metrics on $(M,D)$ are said to be projectively (resp. affinely) equivalent if they have the same geodesics up to reparameterization (resp. up to affine reparameterization). A sub-Riemannian metric $g$ is called rigid (resp. conformally rigid) with respect to projective/affine equivalence, if any sub-Riemannian metric which is projectively/affinely equivalent to $g$ is constantly proportional to $g$ (resp. conformal to $g$). In the Riemannian case the local classification of projectively and a…
An algebraic curvature tensor is called Osserman if the eigenvalues of the associated Jacobi operator are constant on the unit sphere. A Riemannian manifold is called conformally Osserman if its Weyl conformal curvature tensor at every point is Osserman. We prove that a conformally Osserman manifold of dimension $n \ne 3, 4, 16$ is locally conformally equivalent either to a Euclidean space or to a rank-one symmetric space.
In this paper, we present some new properties for p-biharmonic hypersurfaces in Riemannian manifold. We also characterize the p-biharmonic submanifolds in an Einstein space. We construct a new example of proper p-biharmonic hypersurfaces. We present some open problems.
We construct the first known examples of compact pseudo-Riemannian manifolds having an essential group of conformal transformations, and which are not conformally flat. Our examples cover all types $(p,q)$, with $2 \leq p \leq q$.
We prove the following statement: Let g be a light-line-complete pseudo-Riemannian Einstein metric of indefinite signature on a connected (n>2)-dimensional manifold M. Assume that a conformally equivalent metric is also Einstein. Then, the metrics are proportional with a constant coefficient. If in addition the manifold is closed, the assumption that the manifold is light-line-complete could be omitted.
We characterize manifolds which are locally conformally equivalent to either complex projective space or to its negative curvature dual in terms of their Weyl curvature tensor. As a byproduct of this investigation, we classify the conformally complex space forms if the dimension is at least 8. We also study when the Jacobi operator associated to the Weyl conformal curvature tensor of a Riemannian manifold has constant eigenvalues on the bundle of unit tangent vectors and classify such manifolds which are not conformally flat in dimensions congruent to 2 mod 4.
We characterize Osserman and conformally Osserman Riemannian manifolds with the local structure of a warped product. By means of this approach we analyze the twisted product structure and obtain, as a consequence, that the only Osserman manifolds which can be written as a twisted product are those of constant curvature.
