scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1170991
The study of the Jacobi operator is a central topic in Riemannian and pseudo-Riemannian geometry. Since it is a selfadjoint operator, it is expected that the properties of its spectrum influence the geometry of the manifold. In this direction, the Osserman problem arises as the characterization of those manifolds whose Jacobi operators have eigenvalues independent of the point and the direction. The purpose of the paper under review is to report on the authors' recent work on the study of the Osserman problem as well as on the current state of the problem in the Riemannian and pseudo-Riemannian categories. A Riemannian manifold is said to be an Osserman space if the eigenvalues of the Jacobi operators are constant on the unit sphere bundle. If the dimension is different from \(4k\), \(k>1\), they are spaces of constant curvature or Kähler manifolds of constant holomorphic sectional curvature [\textit{Q.-S. Chi}, J. Differ. Geom. 28, 187-202 (1988; Zbl 0654.53053)]. However, it is still an open problem whether or not Riemannian Osserman spaces are locally symmetric. The Osserman problem behaves in a different way in Lorentzian geometry, since any Lorentzian Osserman manifold is necessarily of constant curvature [cf. \textit{E. García-Río, D. N. Kupeli} and \textit{M. E. Vázquez-Abal}, Differ. Geom. Appl. 7, 85-100 (1997; Zbl 0880.53017); \textit{N. Blažić, N. Bokan} and \textit{P.Gilkey}, Bull. Lond. Math. Soc. 29, 227-230 (1997; Zbl 0865.53018)]. However, main differences appear when the Osserman problem is considered for neutral metrics of signature \((+ + --)\). It is a basic observation that the Jacobi operators are not necessarily diagonalizable for metrics of such signature. If the Jacobi operators are diagonalizable, \((+ + --)\)-Osserman manifolds are locally a space of constant curvature, an indefinite complex space form, or a paracomplex space form [cf. \textit{N. Blažić, N. Bokan} and \textit{Z. Rakić}, `Characterization of 4-dimensional Osserman pseudo-Riemannian manifolds', to appear]. Moreover, it is also interesting to note that the first nonsymmetric examples of Osserman manifolds are obtained for \((+ + --)\)-metrics with nondiagonalizable Jacobi operators [cf. \textit{E. García-Río, M. E. Vázquez-Abal} and \textit{R. Vázquez-Lorenzo}, Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 126, 2771-2778 (1998)].
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