Totally geodesic orbits of isometries (Q1268105)

Let \(M\) be a complete Riemannian manifold and \(G\subset \text{Isom}(M)\) a closed connected subgroup. By definition, the cohomogeneity of \(G\) is the minimal codimension of a \(G\)-orbit in \(M\). The authors study the case when \(G\) has cohomogeneity one. Besides the orbits of maximal dimension, which are hypersurfaces, there are at most two orbits of smaller dimension. These orbits are called singular. The authors establish two simple sufficient criteria for a singular orbit \(S\) to be totally geodesic. E. g., they show that \(S\) is totally geodesic if the action of \(G\) on \(S\) is not (almost) effective. Let \(S\cong G/H\) be a singular orbit and denote by \(k\) the cohomogeneity of the \(H\)-action on \(S\). Then they also show that the inequality \[ 2\dim S+1< \dim M+k \] implies that \(S\) is totally geodesic. As an application, they prove that a singular orbit \(S\) which is two-point homogeneous is automatically totally geodesic. Finally, using results of Grove and Searle, they show that a positively curved Riemannian manifold \(M\) which admits a compact non-semisimple group of isometries of cohomogeneity one is diffeomorphic to a compact rank one symmetric space.