Gauss maps of the Ricci-mean curvature flow (Q1646636)

A Ricci-mean curvature flow is a coupled equation of a mean curvature flow and a Ricci flow on the ambient manifold. In this paper, the authors deduced the evolution equation for the Gauss maps of a Ricci-mean curvature flow. In particular, when the codimension of the submanifolds is \(1\), the Gauss maps satisfy the vertically harmonic map heat flow. This generalizes the results by \textit{E. A. Ruh} and \textit{J. Vilms} [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 149, 569--573 (1970; Zbl 0199.56102)] and \textit{M.-T. Wang} [Math. Res. Lett. 10, No. 2--3, 287--299 (2003; Zbl 1068.53047)]. Recall that Ruh and Vilms proved that the Gauss map of a minimal submanifold in a Euclidean space is a harmonic map, and M.-T. Wang extended this result to a mean curvature flow in a Euclidean space by proving that the Gauss maps satisfy the harmonic map heat flow. We note that in this paper, for an immersion \(F:M^l\to (N^n,g)\) from an \(l\)-dimensional manifold to an \(n\)-dimensional Riemannian manifold, the Gauss map is defined as a smooth map \(\gamma_F\) which assigns to any point \(p\in M\) the normal space \(\gamma_F(p)=(F_*(T_pM))^{\bot}\in G_m(TN)\) of \(F(M)\) at \(p\). Here \(G_m(TN)\) is the Grassmannian bundle of \(N\) which consists of all \(m\)-dimensional subspaces, \(m=n-l\), for which in each \(T_pN\). If the ambient Riemmanian manifold \((N,g)\) is fixed, this definition of Gauss map is essentially the same as that defined by Ruh and Vilms, where the Gauss map assigns to any point \(p\in M\) its tangent plane \(F_*(T_pM)\). The reason for which the authors of this paper consider the normal Gauss map is that the ambient Riemannian manifolds are evolving by the Ricci flow.