Generalized Gauss equations (Q756147)

In considering the problem of local isometric imbeddings of Riemannian manifolds M into the Euclidean spaces, it is important whether a given Riemannian manifold admits a solution of the Gauss equation in a given codimension. This problem was treated by the present author and E. Kaneda and later by the present author and some results were obtained. But concerning the solvability of the Gauss equation in higher codimension almost nothing is known at present except for some special cases. The difficulty essentially originates in the complicated structure of the polynomial ring of the space of curvature-like tensors. In the present paper in order to avoid the difficulty the notion of the Gauss equation is generalized and the generalized Gauss equation (the g-G equation) is defined. With the use of this idea non-existence of local isometric imbeddings of some Riemannian manifolds can be proved which cannot be treated by previous methods. Roughly speaking, the g-G equation is the equation of polynomial valued 2-forms \[ C=\alpha_ 1\wedge \beta_ 1+...+\alpha_{\gamma}\wedge \beta_{\gamma} \] where \(\alpha_ i\), \(\beta_ i\) are some polynomial valued 1-forms on the tangent space of M. \(\{\alpha_ i,\beta_ i\}\) are considered as unknown quantities and C is the curvature of M. The role of g-G equations is expressed in the following theorem. When a curvature-like tensor R is given we get the 2-form C from R. If R admits a solution of the Gauss equation in codimension \(\gamma\), then C possesses a solution of the g-G equation in codimension \(\gamma\). In the present paper g-G equations are studied in various cases and interesting results are obtained. For example, the 8-dimensional Lie group SU(3) with the bi-invariant Riemannian metric cannot be isometrically immersed into \({\mathbb{R}}^{12}\) even locally.