Splitting submanifolds of families of fake elliptic curves (Q544863)

We say that a closed submanifold \(N\) of a projective manifold \(M\) splits if the inclusion \(T_N \subset T_M|_N\) exhibits \(T_N\) as a direct factor \(T_M|_N \simeq T_N \oplus N_{N/M}\). Under suitable conditions on \(M\) it is possible to derive strong consequences of this property: a theorem of \textit{A. Van de Ven} [Centre Belge Rech. Math., Colloque Géom. Différ. Globale, Bruxelles du 19 au 22 Déc. 1958, 151--152 (1959; Zbl 0092.14004)] stated that if \(M\) is a projective space, a submanifold splits if and only if it is a linear subspace. \textit{N. Mok} proved in [Sci. China, Ser. A 48, Suppl., 123--145 (2005; Zbl 1128.32014)] that if \(M\) is Kähler-Einstein with constant holomorphic sectional curvature, then \(N\) splits if and only if it is totally geodesic. Kähler-Einstein manifolds with constant holomorphic sectional curvature can be classified, they are either the projective space, finite étale quotients of complex tori or ball quotients. This classification shows that all these manifolds carry a holomorphic projective structure in the sense of Gunning, a situation considered by the authors in [Math. Ann. 329, No. 3, 379--400 (2004; Zbl 1074.14035)]. They proved that a projective threefold has a holomorphic projective connection if and only if it is (up to finite étale cover) one of the three examples above or a modular family of fake elliptic curves. In this context a modular family of fake elliptic curves is actually a projective threefold \(M\) with a holomorphic submersion \(M \rightarrow C\) onto a compact Shimura curve \(C\) such that every fibre is an abelian surface \(A\) and the endomorphism algebra \(\mathrm{End}_{\mathbb Q}(A)\) of a general fibre is an indefinite division quaternion algebra over \(\mathbb Q\). In the paper under review the authors study submanifolds \(N\) of a modular family of fake elliptic curves \(M\). They prove that \(N\) splits if and only if it is an elliptic curve in a fibre or an étale multisection of the fibration \(M \rightarrow C\).