Riemannian submersions of open manifolds which are flat at infinity (Q1125560)

Given an open (complete, noncompact) Riemannian manifold \(M\), let \(o\) be a fixed point of \(M\) and denote by \(k\) the function such that, for any \(\rho>0\), \(k(\rho)=\sup\{|k_\sigma|\); \(\sigma\) 2-plane in \(T_pM\), \(d(o,p)=\rho\}\), \(k_\sigma\) denoting the sectional curvature at \(p\) with respect to \(\sigma\). The manifold \(M\) is said to be flat at infinity if the function \(k\) is infinitesimal at infinity. Via a uniform length estimate for some special curves in Grassmannians and ergodic arguments, the author proves the following result. Theorem A: If the total space \(M\) of a Riemannian submersion \(\pi:M-B\) is flat at infinity and the base \(B\) is compact, then \(B\) is flat. Applying the above theorem to open Riemannian manifolds \(M\) of non negative sectional curvatures, which turn out to be the total space of a Riemannian submersion with base a soul \(S\) of \(M\), the author is able to solve a conjecture by \textit{J.-H. Eschenburg}, \textit{V. Schroeder}, and \textit{M. Strake} [J. Differ. Geom. 30, 155-166 (1989; Zbl 0678.53031)], i.e., he states the following theroem. Theorem B. The soul of an open Riemannian manifold \(M\) of nonnegative sectional curvatures and flat at infinity is flat and the universal covering of \(M\) is diffeomorphic to the Euclidean space. The technique involved in the proof of Theorem A also allows to obtain a result due to \textit{G. Walschap} [J. Geom. Anal. 2, 373-381 (1992; Zbl 0769.53021)], stating that any flat space which occurs as the total space of a Riemannian submersion over a compact base is locally a direct product.