Average Gaussian Curvature of Leaves of Foliations

BULLETIN OF THE
AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY

Volume 84, Number 1, January 1978
AVERAGE GAUSSIAN CURVATURE

OF LEAVES OF FOLIATIONS
BY DANIEL ASIMOV1
Communicated by P. T. Church, July 26, 1977
Let F be a smooth transversely-oriented foliation of a compact, connected,

oriented, Riemannian manifold Wn+l of constant sectional curvature = c. Let
K¥: W —* R via Kf(pc) = the Gaussian curvature (defined below) of the leaf ln
through x at x. For n = 2 this is classical Gaussian curvature. Let vol be the
canonical volume on W, and define K^ by Volume (W) • Kv = fw K^vol.
THEOREM 1.
2V 2
Kc
" /Gft> — *
0, n odd.
THEOREM 2. Let « + 1 = 3 and suppose F, W, c are as above except that

dW is nonempty and is a union of leaves of F. Then
ƒ KFvol = 2c Volume(W) + $bW H vol'
where H: bW —> Ris the mean curvature {computed with respect to the trans-
verse orientation), and vol' is the canonical volume on dW.
THEOREM 3. Suppose n + 1 = 3. Let F and W be as in the original hy-
potheses with dW = 0 but assume the sectional curvatures of W lie between cx
and c2. Then we have 2c\ < Kf < 2c 2 .
DEFINITION OF GAUSSIAN CURVATURE. We define, for a Riemannian
n
manifold I = l , the function K: I —> R in two cases (which overlap):
Case (i). n is even. In this case a local orthonormal frame on / gives rise
to a matrix of curvature 2-forms, £2 = (fij.) defined locally. The Pfaffians of the
local £1 agree on overlaps and so define a global «-form Pf(£2) on /. Letting v de-
note the canonical volume form on / we set
2n/2 • (n/2)\
(see [3, vol. V, pp. 417-420]).

AMS (MOS) subject classifications (1970). Primary 57D30, 53C99.
Key words and phrases. Codimension-one foliation, Gaussian curvature, constant cur-
vature.
1 Research supported by the National Science Foundation.
131
132 DANIEL ASIMOV
Case (ii). Assume / is a hyper sur face of a flat Riemannian manifold W9 and
that / is transversely oriented by a field of unit normals £. Then at each point x
of / let Ax: Txl —» Txl be defined by Axv = -V„£. Then we define K(x) =
det(Ax). (See [3, vol. IV, p. 96].)
REMARKS. In the overlap of Cases (i) and (ii), viz. when / is an even-dimen-
sional hypersurface of a flat manifold, the two definitions of K agree. If n is
even then K is intrinsic to the geometry of /; if n > 3 is odd then K is intrinsic
up to a global choice of sign [3, vol. IV, p. 96].
SKETCH OF PROOF OF THEOREM 1. We consider two cases: n odd and n
even.
(i) The case n is odd:
Here x(W) = 0 and hence by Chern-Gauss-Bonnet [3, vol. V, p. 442] the
constant curvature c = 0, i.e. W is flat. Without loss of generality we may assume,
by taking a finite covering, that W is in fact a flat torus [1, p. 212].
Let Tp « Rn+1 denote the tangent space to W at some point p E W. A
choice of unit normal vector field £ to the foliation F determines (by parallel
translation in W) a Gauss map g : W —> Tp whose image lies of course in the
unit sphere Sn C Tp. Think of dg as a map dg: W —» End(TW) via x h* dgx.
Let ot(Ex) denote the rth elementary symmetric function of the eigenvalues
of Ex, where Ex is any endomorphism Ex: Tx —• Tx.
LEMMA. Kf(x) = on(-dgx), for all x E W.
The proof is not difficult.
Now for each t E R consider ht: W —> W defined by ht{x) = exp(/g(x)),
or in other words ht(x) - x + tg(x) (by slight abuse of notation). A computa-
tion shows that
f Jht vol = f det(7 + tdg)vo\ or
W Volume^ = Volume(H>) • [1 + a^dgyt + • • • + ân(dg)tn]

where ot(dg) denotes the average over x E W of ot{dgx), and / denotes the Jaco-
bian.
Since both sides of (*) are polynomials in t it follows that a((dg) = 0, / =
1, . . . , n.
COROLLARY. In the above case we have o((dg) = 0 for i = 1, . . . , n. In
particular o2(dg) is a multiple of the leaf scalar curvature; hence the average leaf
scalar curvature is 0 whenever W is flat.
SKETCH OF PROOF OF THEOREM 1 (CONTINUED).
(ii) The case n is even:
The proof depends on the construction of certain globally defined w-forms.
Let {0 1 , . . . , 6n, 0" + 1 } be a local adapted orthonormal coframe field (with
AVERAGE GAUSSIAN CURVATURE OF LEAVES OF FOLIATIONS 133
6n+l orthogonal to the leaves of F) and let {coj} be the associated Riemannian
connection forms. Put
<t>r = z i-W"?*}A • • •A uffrl)M°l2r) A ... A o°w

oesn
for 1 < r < n/2, where Sn denotes the symmetric group on {1, . . . , n} and
(-l) a is the sign of the permutation a.
LEMMA. The n-forms <pr do not depend on the choice of orthonormal co-
frame {01} and hence are globally defined on W.
The proof is an unpleasant calculation.
LEMMA. For each n there exist constants br, 1 < r < n/2 such that if we
set
n(2
* = S Mr tken
d* = {KF - a„c"/2)vol where an = 2 " / ( „ " 2 ) •
The proof is an even more unpleasant calculation.

Integrating (**) over W readily yieldsKf = 2ncnl2/(n?2) as desired.
REMARKS. By taking double covers we may prove Theorem 1 even if W is
allowed to be nonorientable. If n is even then we may similarly drop the assump-
tion that Fis transversely orientable. If « is odd, however, transverse orientabil-
ity is required in order that K^ be defined.
Theorem 1 has been generalized in various ways in the recent paper of
Rosenberg, Brito and Langevin [2]. Theorems 2 and 3 are proved using methods
similar to Theorem 1.
REFERENCES
1. S. Kobayashi and K. Nomizu, Foundations of differential geometry. I, Interscience,
New York and London, 1963.
2. F. Brito, R. Langevin and H. Rosenberg, Curvature integrals in foliated manifolds,
Université Paris-Sud, Orsay, 1977 (preprint).
3. M. Spivak, A comprehensive introduction to differential geometry. IV, V, Publish
or Perish, Boston, Mass., 1975.
INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDY, SCHOOL OF MATHEMATICS, PRINCETON,

NEW JERSEY 08540
DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, MINNEAPO-

LIS, MINNESOTA 55455
DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT

CHAPEL HILL, CHAPEL HILL, NORTH CAROLINA 27514
Current address: Department of Mathematics, Haverford College, Haverford, Pennsyl-

vania 19041

Average Gaussian Curvature of Leaves of Foliations

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Average Gaussian Curvature of Leaves of Foliations

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Average Gaussian Curvature of Leaves of Foliations

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

BULLETIN OF THE

AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY

AVERAGE GAUSSIAN CURVATURE

Let F be a smooth transversely-oriented foliation of a compact, connected,

THEOREM 2. Let « + 1 = 3 and suppose F, W, c are as above except that

(see [3, vol. V, pp. 417-420]).

W Volume^ = Volume(H>) • [1 + a^dgyt + • • • + ân(dg)tn]

<t>r = z i-W"?*}A • • •A uffrl)M°l2r) A ... A o°w

d* = {KF - a„c"/2)vol where an = 2 " / ( „ " 2 ) •

The proof is an even more unpleasant calculation.

INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDY, SCHOOL OF MATHEMATICS, PRINCETON,

DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, MINNEAPO-

DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT

Current address: Department of Mathematics, Haverford College, Haverford, Pennsyl-

You might also like