Nonnegatively curved Euclidean submanifolds in codimension two (Q2374415): Difference between revisions

A compact positively curved codimension-2 submanifold in Euclidean space is homotopy equivalent to a sphere [\textit{J. D. Moore}, Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 70, 72--74 (1978; Zbl 0395.53024)]. The case of nonnegative sectional curvature is more delicate [\textit{Y. Y. Baldin} and \textit{F. Mercuri}, Math. Z. 173, 111--117 (1980; Zbl 0417.53032); Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 103, No. 3, 918--920 (1988; Zbl 0654.53057)]. The authors strengthen these results using recent outcomes about the Ricci flow (that allowed to simplify proof as well). Their classification of compact Euclidean submanifolds \(M^n\subset \mathbb R^{n+2}\), for \(n\geq3\), with nonnegative sectional curvature is in terms of the induced metric (including the diffeomorphism classification of the manifold). The authors study the structure of the immersions as well. In particular, they provide the first known example of a nonorientable quotient \((S^{n-1}\times S^1)/\mathbb Z_2\subset \mathbb R^{n+2}\) with nonnegative curvature. For the 3-dimensional case, they show that either the universal cover is isometric to \(S^2\times \mathbb R\), or \(M^3\) is diffeomorphic to a lens space, and the complement of the (nonempty) set of flat points is isometric to a twisted cylinder \((N^2\times \mathbb R)/\mathbb Z\); hence, if the set of flat points is not too big, there exists a unique flat totally geodesic surface in \(M^3\) whose complement is the union of at most two twisted cylinders over disks.