Fat Flats in rank one manifolds (Q2313914)

If \((M,g)\) is a nonpositively curved Riemannian manifold, then the rank of a geodesic \(\gamma\) in \(M\) is the dimension of the space of parallel Jacobi fields for \(\gamma\). The rank of \(M\) is the minimum rank over all geodesics for \(M\). \textit{W. Ballmann} in [Ann. Math. (2) 122, 597--609 (1985; Zbl 0585.53031)] and \textit{K. Burns} and \textit{R. Spatzier} in [Publ. Math., Inst. Hautes Étud. Sci. 65, 35--59 (1987; Zbl 0643.53037)] completely characterized closed nonpositively curved higher rank manifolds. It was shown that they are either locally symmetric or their universal covers split isometrically as a product. Hence, all other nonpositively curved Riemannian manifolds are of rank-1. A \(k\)-flat in the universal cover \(\widetilde M\) with a neighborhood isometric to \(\mathbb{R}^k\times B_w\), where \(B_w\subset\mathbb{R}^{n-k}\) is a \(w\)-radius ball, is called a fat \(k\)-flat in \(\widetilde M\). In the particular, a fat \(1\)-flat is a geodesic \(\widetilde{\gamma}\subset\widetilde M\) which has such a neighborhood. The product neighborhood around \(\widetilde{\gamma}\) is called a flat cylindrical neighborhood of \(\widetilde{\gamma}\). Nonpositively curved manifolds, where the zero sectional curvatures are concentrated on flats, are the simplest class of rank-1 manifolds for which the geodesic flow is not Anosov. For a rank-1 manifold, a fat flat may be viewed an obstruction to having only countably many closed geodesics in \(M\). An open neighborhood of a closed geodesic \(\gamma\) in \(M\) is called a twisted cylindrical neighborhood if it lifts to a flat cylindrical neighborhood of \(\widetilde\gamma\) in \(\widetilde M\), and the holonomy around the periodic geodesic \(\gamma\), given by a matrix in \(\mathrm{SO}(n-1)\), is nontrivial. In this paper, the authors study closed nonpositively curved Riemannian manifolds \(M\) that admit fat \(k\)-flats. They investigate how the fat \(k\)-flats affect the cardinality of the collection of closed geodesics. First, they show that if \(M\) is an odd-dimensional, finite volume, hyperbolic \((2n+1)\)-manifold, then \(M\) has a finite cover \(\widetilde M\to M\) that supports nonpositively curved Riemannian metrics \(g\) so that some closed geodesic \(\gamma\subset(\widetilde M,g)\) has a twisted cylindrical neighborhood \(N\) with holonomy having all eigenvalues of the form \(e^{i\alpha}\), where \(\alpha\) is an irrational multiple of \(\pi\). In particular: (i)\, the sectional curvatures of \(M\) are everywhere \(\le 0\), (ii)\, the closed geodesic \(\gamma\) lifts to a fat 1-flat \(\widetilde\gamma\hookrightarrow\widetilde M\), and (iii)\, there are only countably many closed geodesics in \((\widetilde M,g)\). Next, the authors show that if \(M\) is a closed, nonpositively curved Riemannian manifold, and \(\widetilde M^n\) contains a fat \(k\)-flat, then \(M^n\) contains an immersed, totally geodesic, flat \(k\)-dimensional closed submanifold \(N^k\hookrightarrow M^n\) such that \(\widetilde N^k\) is a fat \(k\)-flat. As a conclusion, the authors show that if \(M\) is a closed, nonpositively curved Riemannian manifold, and \(\widetilde M^n\) contains a fat \(k\)-flat, then (i)\, if \(k=1\), then there exists a closed geodesic \(\gamma\) in \(M\) for which the neighborhood of the geodesic has zero sectional curvatures, and it is possible that there are no other closed geodesics contained in the flat neighborhood of \(\gamma\), (ii)\, if \(k\ge 2\), then for all \(1\le \ell<k\), \(M\) contains uncountably many immersed, closed, and totally geodesic flat \(\ell\)-submanifolds. In particular, there must be uncountably many closed geodesics.