Totally geodesic subgroups of diffeomorphisms (Q1603287)

It is well-known that the equations of motion of the finite-dimensional mechanical systems governed by Newtonian mechanics can be interpreted as the geodesic equations of a Riemannian metric on configuration space. In [Ann. Inst. Fourier 16, No. 1, 319-361 (1966; Zbl 0148.45301)] \textit{V. Arnold} considered the case of certain systems occurring in fluid mechanics. Euler equation for an ideal fluid flow \(\frac{d}{dt}u=-\nabla_uu-\text{grad} p\) is the geodesic equation on the group of volume preserving diffeomorphisms with right invariant \(L^2\)-metric. For a compact oriented surface this is the group of symplectic diffeomorphisms. The fact that the existence of a single-valued stream function for the velocity field \(u\) at the initial moment implies the existence of a single-valued stream function at any moment, is equivalent to the fact that the group of Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms is totally geodesic in the group of symplectic diffeomorphisms. In this paper, the authors classify Riemannian manifolds for which the group of exact volume preserving diffeomorphisms is a totally geodesic subgroup of the group of volume preserving diffeomorphisms, considering right invariant \(L^2\)-metrics. The authors do the same for the subgroup of Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms as a subgroup of the group of symplectic diffeomorphisms in the Kähler case.