The curvature operator at the soul (Q384304)

The soul of a manifold, introduced in [\textit{J. Cheeger} and \textit{D. Gromoll}, Ann. Math. (2) 96, 413--443 (1972; Zbl 0246.53049)], generalizes the notion of simple point in a Riemannian manifold (i.e. a point \(p\) for which there are no geodesic loops in the manifold, closed at \(p\)). More exactly, the soul of a manifold \(M\) is defined as a compact totally geodesic and totally convex submanifold of \(M\). The authors consider here an open manifold \(M\) of nonnegative sectional curvature, whose soul is denoted by \(\Sigma\), and study the curvature operator \(\rho:\Lambda^2(TM)\rightarrow \Lambda^2(TM)\) along \(\Sigma\). The main theorems are two splitting results. The first one is a metric splitting theorem, showing that if the restriction of \(\rho\) to \(\Sigma\) is 3-nonnegative, then \(M\) is locally a metric product, having \(\Sigma\) as a factor. The second one is a differentiable splitting result, which asserts that if \(\Sigma\) is simply connected and the scalar curvature of \(M\) is small enough, then \(M\) is diffeomorphic to \(\Sigma\times \mathbb R^k.\)