Manifolds with 2-nonnegative Ricci operator. (Q701260)

In this paper the authors study compact Riemannian manifolds with curvature conditions, which allow them to apply the Bochner technique. In particular they look at manifolds with \(2\)-nonnegative Ricci operator, meaning that the sum of the two smallest eigenvalues of the Ricci operator is nonnegative; a notion which generalizes nonnegative Ricci curvature. Their main result says that for a compact, locally irreducible Riemannian manifold \(M\) of dimension \(n > 4\), with \(2\)-nonnegative Ricci operator and Weyl operator satisfying \([W, {\text{Ric}} \wedge {\text{Id}}] = 0\), \(-W + {{S}\over{(n-2)(n-1)}}\geq 0\), where \(S\) is the scalar curvature, we have the conclusion: \(M\) is locally symmetric and covered by a compact symmetric space or the Betti numbers \(\beta_p(M)\) vanish for \(2\leq p\leq n-2\). The proof establishes that the Weitzenböck operator must be nonnegative, and then goes via the Bochner technique and holonomy considerations. The condition \([W, {\text{Ric}} \wedge {\text{Id}}] = 0\), i.e., that the Weyl operator on bivectors commutes with \({\text{Ric}} \wedge {\text{Id}}\), holds in important classes like Einstein manifolds, conformally flat manifolds and manifolds with pure curvature tensor. The authors give applications of their main theorem to the topology of hypersurfaces of Euclidean space, cohomogeneity one manifolds and manifolds with harmonic curvature.