Extrinsic curvatures of distributions of arbitrary codimension (Q967474)

This paper extends the work of \textit{F. B. Brito} and \textit{A. M. Naveira} [Ann. Global Anal. Geom. 18, No.~3--4, 371--383 (2000; Zbl 0974.53018)]. Using the generalized Newton transformation, the authors define higher order mean curvatures of distributions (not necessarily integrable) of arbitrary codimension, which agree with those defined by Brito and Naveira for closed spaces of constant curvature. They also introduce higher order mean curvature vector fields and compute their divergence for certain distributions, thereby obtaining total extrinsic mean curvatures.