Spectral sequences and taut Riemannian foliations (Q2642621)

From the author's abstract: Using a relation between the terms of the spectral sequence of a Riemannian foliation and its adiabatic limit, the author obtains Bochner type techniques for this special setting and, as a consequence, in the special case of a Riemannian flow he obtains vanishing conditions for the top dimensional group of the basic cohomology \(H^q_b(\mathcal{F})\)-which is related to the property of being geodesible. The author also extends a Weitzenböck type formula for the leafwise Laplacian [cf. \textit{P. Petersen}, Riemannian geometry. New York, NY: Springer (1998; Zbl 0914.53001)] and, for the particular class of compact foliations, he obtains a generalization of a result due to \textit{M. Min-Oo, E. Ruth} and \textit{P. Tondeur} [J. Reine Angew. Math. 415, 167--174 (1991; Zbl 0716.53032)] concerning the vanishing of the basic cohomology under the assumption that certain curvature operators are positive definite. In the final part an example is presented. The basic works used by the author are two ample papers by \textit{J. A. Álvarez López} and \textit{Y. A. Kordyukov} on Hodge-de Rham theory for the spectral sequences of a Riemannian foliation [Compos. Math. 125, 129--153 (2001; Zbl 0982.58019); Geom. Funct. Anal. 10, 977--1027 (2000; Zbl 0965.57024)]. The author uses the notation \((M,\mathcal{F},g)\) for a Riemanninan foliation \(\mathcal{F}\) defined on a closed Riemannian manifold \(M\) with a bundle-like metric \(g\). The main results of the paper are the following. Theorem 1. Considering a Riemannian foliation \((M,\mathcal{F},g)\), if the differential operators \(K^0,K^1\) of order 0 are non-negative operators, and \(K^2\) is strictly positive, then the second term \(E_2\) of the spectral sequence vanishes. Theorem 2. If \((M,\mathcal{F},g)\) is a Riemannian foliation with \(\text{scal}^o_{\text{mixed}}>0\) on \(M\), the tangent Ricci operator \(\text{Ric}^\mathcal{F}\) is non-negative and furthermore the operator \(K^1_{-1,1}\) is nonnegative, then \(H^q_b(\mathcal{F})=0\). (Here \(\text{scal}_{\text{mixed}}\) denotes the mixed scalar curvature defined in an arbitrary point \(x\in M\) by \(\text{scal}_{\text{mixed}}:= \sum _{i=1}^p\sum_{j=1}^q R(e_i,f_a,f_a,e_i)\), where \(1\leq i\leq p\) and \(1\leq a\leq q\) such that \(f_a\in T\mathcal{F}^\bot\) and \(e_i\in T\mathcal{F}\) form an orthogonal basis \(\{f_a,e_i\}\) at \(x\) [cf. \textit{V. Rovenskii}, Foliations on Riemannian manifolds and submanifolds. Boston: Birkhäuser (1998; Zbl 0958.53021)]). Corollary 1. If \((M,\mathcal{F},g)\) is a Riemannian flow so that \(\text{scal}_{\text{mixed}}^0>0\) on \(M\), then \(H^q_b(\mathcal{F})=0\), and the foliation is not geodesible. In the last part of the paper the author applies these theorems for \(\text{SO}(3,\mathbb{R})\)-foliation in order to obtain concrete vanishing results.