Corrected energy of distributions on Riemannian manifolds (Q1431082)

On the volume of the unit vector field on the three sphere, \textit{H. Gluck} and \textit{W. Ziller} [Comment. Math. Helv. 61, 177--192 (1986; Zbl 0605.53022)], \textit{D. L. Johnson} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 104, No. 3, 923--931 (1988; Zbl 0687.58031)] are only two examples of papers in which the volume of unit vector fields is studied. It is proved that in the ambient manifold \(S^3\) the Hopf vector fields, and no others, minimize this functional, and for higher dimensional spheres, the Hopf vector fields are unstable critical points; that is they are not even local minima. \textit{G. Wiegmink} in [Math. Ann. 303, No. 2, 325--344 (1995; Zbl 0834.53034)] defined the total bending of a unit vector field \(X\); this functional is related to the energy of the map \(X:M\rightarrow T^1M\). Then \textit{F. G. B. Brito} in [Differ. Geom. Appl. 12, No. 2, 157--163 (2000; Zbl 0995.53023)] proved that the Hopf vector fields in \(S^3\) are the only minima of the total bending. Furthermore, he proved a more general result giving an absolute minimum in any dimension of the total bending corrected by the second fundamental form of the orthogonal distribution to the field \(X\). The coefficient of this correction vanishes in dimension 3. This means that the corrected total bending generalizes the total bending. In the same way the energy of a \(q\)-distribution \({\mathcal{V}}\) in a compact oriented Riemannian manifold \(M\) is the energy of a section of the Grassmann manifold of \(q\)-planes in \(M\) induced by \({\mathcal{V}}\). In this paper the authors introduce the \textit{corrected energy} by adding to the energy the norms of the mean curvatures of \({\mathcal{V}}\) and its orthogonal distribution (with different weights). In theorem 1 a lower bound for the corrected energy of a foliation is found and in theorem 3 it is proved that the Hopf fibrations are minima of this corrected energy.