Diffeomorphic souls and disconnected moduli spaces of nonnegatively curved metrics (Q2152464)

The classical soul theorem by \textit{J. Cheeger} and \textit{D. Gromoll} [Ann. Math. (2) 96, 413--443 (1972; Zbl 0246.53049)] states that any complete Riemannian manifold \((V,g)\) of non-negative sectional curvature (for short, \(K\geq0\)) is diffeomorphic to the normal bundle of a closed, totally geodesic and totally convex embedded submanifold \(S \subseteq V\), that is called a soul of \((V,g)\). By Gauss' equations, the induced metric on the soul is also of \(K\geq0\). For any two souls \(S\), \(S'\) of the same Riemannian manifold \((V,g)\) there exists a diffeomorphism of \(V\) that maps \(S\) onto \(S'\) isometrically [\textit{V. A. Sharafutdinov}, Mat. Zametki 26, 129--136 (1979; Zbl 0423.53031)]. This allows to define a map \[ \mathbf{soul} : \mathcal{M}_{K\geq 0}(V) \to \coprod_{S\in\mathcal{V}} \mathcal{M}_{K\geq0}(S) \] sending the isometry class of a complete metric of \(K\geq 0\) to the isometry class of the metric induced on its soul (here \(\mathcal{M}_{K\geq0}(M)\) denotes the quotient modulo \(\mathrm{Diff}(M)\) of the space of complete metrics of \(K\geq0\) on a given manifold \(M\), and \(\mathcal{V}\) is the collection of diffeomorphism types of manifolds that arise as souls of \(V\) for some complete metric of \(K\geq0\)). In this paper the authors construct examples of open manifolds \(V\) that admit infinitely many complete Riemannian metrics of \(K\geq0\) with the same soul \(S\) and whose isometry classes lie in different connected components of the moduli space \(\mathcal{M}_{K\geq 0}(V)\). Previously known examples of this kind had souls of codimension one, while those constructed here are of codimension two or three. In the examples, \(S\) is a closed manifold admitting an infinite family \(\{\gamma_i\}_{i\in I}\) of metrics of \(K\geq 0\) whose isometry classes lie in different connected components of \(\mathcal{M}_{K\geq 0}(S)\), and \(V\) is the total space of a nontrivial fiber bundle over \(S\) carrying a family \(\{g_i\}_{i\in I}\) of complete metrics of \(K\geq 0\) such that, for each \(i\in I\), the zero section of the bundle is a soul for \((V,g_i)\) isometric to \((S,\gamma_i)\). The manifold \(V\) is indecomposable and this guarantees continuity of the map \(\mathbf{soul}\) by a theorem of \textit{I. Belegradek}, \textit{F. T. Farrell} and \textit{V. Kapovitch} [J. Differ. Geom. 105, No. 3, 345--374 (2017; Zbl 1372.53035)], so the isometry classes of the metrics \(g_i\) also lie in different connected components of \(\mathcal{M}_{K\geq 0}(V)\).