Modified differentials and basic cohomology for Riemannian foliations (Q363215)

The basic cohomology \(H^*(M,{\mathcal{F}})\) of foliated manifolds attempts to describe the ``cohomology of the space of leaves'', in particular if the foliation is by fibres of a fibre bundle then the basic cohomology is just the cohomology of the base space. Basic cohomology is defined as the cohomology of the complex of basic forms, i.e., forms that (together with their derivative) locally depend only on the transverse variables in the foliation charts. A foliation is called geometrically taut if there exists a Riemannian metric such that all leaves become minimal hypersurfaces. \textit{X.\ Masa} [Comment. Math. Helv. 67, No. 1, 17--27 (1992; Zbl 0778.53029)] proved that a foliation is geometrically taut if and only if \(H^{\mathrm{codim}({\mathcal{F}})}(M,{\mathcal{F}})=\mathbb R\) and the latter condition is equivalent to that the basic cohomology satisfies Poincaré duality. On the other hand, there are examples of foliations not satisfying Poincaré duality and \textit{J. Álvarez López} [Ann. Global Anal. Geom. 10, No. 2, 179--194 (1992; Zbl 0759.57017)] characterized geometrically taut Riemannian foliations (with bundle-like metric) by the fact that the cohomology class of the basic mean curvature form \(\left[\kappa_b\right]\in H^1(M,{\mathcal{F}})\) vanishes. (Here, \(\kappa_b\) is the projection to the space of basic forms of \(\kappa\), the \(1\)-form dual to the mean curvature vector field.) In the paper under review the authors consider the complex of basic forms with the ``twisted'' differential \(d-\kappa_b\wedge\). This is used to define a twisted basic Laplace operator and a twisted basic cohomology \(\tilde{H}^*(M,{\mathcal{F}})\) and since the twisted basic Laplace operator happens to commute with the Hodge operator, this new cohomology theory actually satisfies Poincaré duality. (For geometrically taut foliations the new cohomology of course coincides with the old one.) The authors establish a Weitzenböck-Bochner formula for the twisted basic Laplace operator and use it to derive some results relating transversal curvature to basic cohomology. Finally, the authors study codimension-two Riemannian foliations and show that in this case a foliation is nontaut if and only if the twisted basic cohomology vanishes in all degrees. The latter implies that the basic Euler characteristic and basic signature must vanish. The authors also compute the twisted basic cohomology for some examples such as Anosov flows on the 3-torus.