Invariant submanifolds of metric contact pairs (Q509573)

On a Riemannian manifold with a tensor field \(\phi\) of type \((1,1)\), a submanifold is said to be \(\phi\)-invariant when its tangent bundle is preserved by \(\phi\). Natural questions concerning the minimality of the submanifold and the nature of the induced structure on it, make the study of such manifolds an interesting source of examples both in the framework of the geometry of submanifolds and in the one of this kind of structures. A metric contact pair is an even-dimensional manifold endowed with a special case of a metric f-structure with two complemented frames (in the sense of Yano). It carries an endomorphism field \(\phi\) of corank 2 and two natural commuting almost complex structures \(J\) and \(T\) of opposite orientations. If \(J\) and \(T\) are both integrable, the structure is said to be normal. The paper under review investigates \(\phi\)-invariant submanifolds of metric contact pairs with orthogonal characteristic foliations. They make constant angles with the Reeb vector fields. In particular, in the normal case, such submanifolds of dimension at least 2 are all minimal. Moreover, it is proved that an odd-dimensional \(\phi\)-invariant submanifold of a metric contact pair with orthogonal characteristic foliations, inherits a contact form with an almost contact metric structure, and this induced structure is contact metric if and only if the submanifold is tangent to one Reeb vector field and orthogonal to the other one.