Extrinsic geometric flows on codimension-one foliations (Q363224): Difference between revisions

The author considers the geometry of a foliation of codimension one with a time-dependent Riemannian metric and gives some applications to the problem of prescribing the mean curvature function of the considered foliation. Let \(M^{n+1}\) be a connected smooth manifold with a codimension-one foliation \(\mathcal{F}\) and a vector field \(N\) transversal to \(\mathcal{F}\). Then, a Riemannian metric \(g\) on \((M, \mathcal{F}, N)\) is adapted if \(g(N, T\mathcal{F})\) = 0 and \(g(N, N) = 1\). Let \(b\) be the second fundamental form on \((M, \mathcal{F}, N)\) of \(\mathcal{F}\) with respect to \(g\) which is extended to \(TM\) by \(b(N, \cdot) = 0\) and \(S(b)\) is a symmetric \(\mathcal{F}\)-truncated (0,2)-tensor expressed in terms of \(g\), i.e \(S(b)(X, Y) = b(\hat{X}, \hat{Y})\) where \(\hat\cdot\) is the \(T\mathcal{F}\)-component. A family (\(g_{t}\)) of adapted Riemannian metrics satisfying the equation \({\partial}_{t}g_{t} = S(b_{t})\) along \(\mathcal{F}\) is called the extrinsic geometric flow (EGF) on \((M, \mathcal{F}, N)\). Main results of the paper are the local existence and uniqueness of EGFs on \((M, \mathcal{F}, N)\) (Theorems 1--2 in Section 2). Further results are applications to the problem of prescribing the mean curvature of the codimension-one foliation \(\mathcal{F}\) (Theorems 3--4 and Propositions 1--3 in Section 2). To illustrate the results, the author gives some examples for EGFs on foliated surfaces (Propositions 10--11 and Examples 7--8 in Section 8).