The Maslov class of some Legendre submanifolds (Q1089969)

After some preparations the author computes the Maslov class in two (geometrically very interesting) situations, by using a differential- geometric technique. The examples considered are (a) Legendre curves on \(S^ 3\), with respect to any one of the three classical contact forms on \(S^ 3\); (b) (the main example) Legendre submanifolds, constructed with respect to the natural contact structure (induced by the Liouville 1- form) of the cotangent unit sphere bundle of a Riemannian manifold. In case (b) a nice geometric characterization of the Maslov class is derived for flat Riemannian manifolds: then it is determined by the mean curvature vector, and it vanishes if the Legendre submanifold is minimal.