Locally symmetric and Ricci-symmetric contact metric manifolds (Q915147)

Recently, generalizing Tanno's result `A locally symmetric K-contact manifold is of constant curvature 1' over a 3-dimensional contact metric manifold, D. E. Blair and the first author proved `A locally symmetric contact metric 3-manifold is either flat or a Sasakian manifold of constant curvature 1'. Thus the question of a locally symmetric contact metric manifold of \(\dim >3\) is still open. The authors partially answer this as: `If the sectional curvature of a locally symmetric contact metric manifold \(M^{2n+1}\) \((n>1)\) with respect to a plane section containing the characteristic vector field \(\xi\) is a constant c, then either \(c=0\) or \(M^{2n+1}\) is a Sasakian manifold of constant curvature 1'. Secondly, generalizing a corresponding result of Tanno, the authors prove `If a contact metric manifold \(M^{2n+1}\) \((n>1)\) with parallel Ricci tensor has \(Ric(\xi,\xi)=\) a constant \(>2n-2\) then it is Einstein'. Finally, generalizing a corresponding result of Tanno for an Einstein contact metric manifold they prove `Let \(\xi\) of a contact metric manifold \(M^{2n+1}\) \((n>1)\) be in the k-nullity distribution. i.e. \(R(X,Y)\xi =k(\eta (Y)X-\eta (X)Y).\) If the Ricci tensor of \(M^{2n+1}\) is parallel then either \(k=0\) in which case \(M^{2n+1}\) is locally isometric to the Riemannian product \(E^{n+1}\times S^ n(4)\) or \(M^{2n+1}\) is an Einstein-Sasakian manifold.'