Commuting Codazzi tensors and the Ribaucour transformation for submanifolds (Q1430551)

A symmetric tensor \(\phi\) on a Riemannian manifold is called a Codazzi tensor if and only if \((\nabla_X \phi) Y= (\nabla_Y \phi) X\). If \(M\) is immersed into a Euclidean space by \(f\), it is said that a Codazzi tensor commutes if and only if the tensor \(\phi\) is also symmetric with respect to the second fundamental form of the immersion \(f\). It is shown that any commuting Codazzi tensor gives rise to a new map \(\mathcal F\) of \(M\) into the Euclidean space such that \(\mathcal F_* = f_* \circ \phi\). Such a transform is called a Combescure transform. The authors also extend the notion of the classical Ribaucour transformation to arbitrary submanifolds of Euclidean spaces using as basic data a bundle isomorphism, a symmetric 1-1 tensor field and a nowhere vanishing smooth vector field.