Conformally flat immersions in codimension two (Q1822064)

A geometric sphere of type \(\epsilon\) \((\epsilon =0,1)\) of a Riemannian manifold M, is an umbilic submanifold \(\Sigma\subseteq M\) with parallel mean curvature vector and such that the sectional curvature of M along planes tangent to \(\Sigma\) are constant k \((k=0\) if \(\epsilon =0\), \(k>0\) if \(\epsilon =1)\). For a conformally flat manifold M we shall say that \(M^ n\) is of type (\(\ell,\epsilon)\) if it is foliated by geometric spheres of type \(\epsilon\) and codimension \(\ell.\) The aim of the paper is to study the local geometry of conformally flat manifolds which admit local isometric immersions in some Euclidean space with codimension 2. The main result is: Let \(M^ n\) (n\(\geq 5)\) be a conformally flat manifold of type (2,\(\epsilon)\). A necessary and sufficient condition for \(M^ n\) to be (locally) isometrically immersed in \(R^{n+2}\) with flat normal connection, is that \(M^ n\) admits two orthogonal foliations of codimension 1 the leaves of which in the induced metric are conformally flat manifolds of type (1,\(\epsilon)\) and the intersection of which gives a foliation of codimension 2 by geometric spheres.