Isometry group and geodesics of the Wagner lift of a Riemannian metric on two-dimensional manifold (Q372742)

For a smooth \(n\)-dimensional manifold \(Q\), a symmetric tensor field \(h^*\) of type \((0,2)\) is a Riemannian metric with singularities if the tensor field \(h\) dual to \(h^*\) is positive definite on \(Q\setminus S\), where \(S\subset Q\) is a submanifold. In the present paper, for each two-dimensional oriented Riemannian manifold \((M,g)\) such that the set \(\Sigma=\{K(x)=0\}\) is a submanifold of \(M\), the authors construct a three-dimensional manifold endowed with a Riemannian metric with singularities. For the principal bundle \(\pi:\mathrm{SO}(M,g)\to M\) of positively oriented orthonormal frames of \((M,g)\) and the distribution \(H\) on \(\mathrm{SO}(M,g)\), which is the Levi-Civita connection of \(g\), the tensor field \(\widetilde g^*=(d\pi_H)^{-12} g^*+K^2\,\partial_\varphi\otimes\partial_\varphi\) is a Riemannian metric with singularities on \(\mathrm{SO}(M,g)\), where \(d\pi_H\) is the restriction of \(d\pi\) to \(H\), \(\partial_\varphi\) is the fundamental vector field of the \(\mathrm{SO}(2)\)-action on \(\mathrm{SO}(M,g)\), and \(K\) is the sectional curvature of \(g\). The metric \(\widetilde g^*\) is called the Wagner lift of \(g\). The authors study the relation between the isometry group of \((M,g)\) and the isometry group of \((\mathrm{SO}(M,g),\widetilde g^*)\), in particular they describe the structure of the Lie algebra of projectable infinitesimal isometries of \((\mathrm{SO}(M,g),\widetilde g^*)\), and give examples of calculations of the Lie algebra of infinitesimal isometries of the Wagner lift of the metric of constant negative curvature on the hyperbolic plane and on surfaces of genus \(k=2\), and of the Wagner lift of a metric of revolution. Next, the authors study geodesics of \((\mathrm{SO}(M,g),\widetilde g^*)\) and their projections onto \(M\). They prove that the projections of the geodesics of the Wagner lift onto the base are solutions of a second-order ordinary differential equation which is expressed in terms of the curvature of the metric on the base. Finally, they observe that the Wagner lift can be constructed just in the same way without assumption of orientability of \(M\).