Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T16:23:14.519Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Jacobi fields and geodesic spheres

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2011

L. Vanhecke
Affiliation:
Department Wiskunde, Faculteit der Wetenschappen, Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven, Belgium
T. J. Willmore
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, University of Durham

Synopsis

This is a contribution to the general problem of determining the extent to which the geometry of a riemannian manifold is determined by properties of its geodesic spheres. In particular we show that total umbilicity of geodesic spheres determines riemannian manifolds of constant sectional curvature; quasi-umbilicity of geodesic spheres determines Kähler and nearly-Kähler manifolds of constant holomorphic sectional curvature; and the condition that geodesic spheres have only two different principal curvatures, one having multiplicity 3, determines manifolds locally isometric to the quaternionic projective spaces. The use of Jacobi vector fields leads to a unified treatment of these different cases.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1979

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1Alekseevskij, D. V.. On holonomy groups of Riemannian manifolds, Ukrain Mat. Z. 19 (1967), 100104.Google Scholar
2Ambrose., W.The index theorem in riemannian geometry. Ann. of Math. 73 (1961), 4986.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3Brown, R. B. and Gray., A. Riemannian manifolds with holonomy group Spin(9). In Differential geometry (in honor of Kentaro Yano). pp. 4159, ed. Kobayashi, S., Obata, M. and Takahashi, T. (Tokyo: Kinokuniya, 1972).Google Scholar
4Fialkow., A.Hypersurfaces of a space of constant curvature. Ann. of Math. 39 (1938), 762785.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5Goldberg., S.Curvature and homology (New York: Academic Press, 1962).Google Scholar
6Gray., A.Weak Holonomy Groups. Math. Z. 123 (1971), 290300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7Gray., A.Classification des varietes approximativement kahleriennes de courbure sectionelle holomorphe constante. C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris Sir. A 279 (1974), 797800.Google Scholar
8Kulkarni., R. S.A finite version of Schur's theorem. Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 53 (1975), 440442.Google Scholar
9Tachibana, S. and Kashiwada, T.. On a characterization of spaces of constant holomorphic curvature in terms of geodesic hypersphere, Kyungpook Math. J. 13 (1973), 110119.Google Scholar
10Tanno., S.Constancy of holomorphic sectional curvature in almost Hermitian manifolds. Kodai Math. Sem. Rep. 25 (1973), 190201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
11Vanhecke, L. and Willmore., T. J. Umbilical hypersurfaces of riemannian, Kahler and nearly Kahler manifolds. J. Univ. Kuwait Sci. (to appear).Google Scholar