1. Introduction
A Riemannian manifold
is referred to as an Einstein manifold [
1] if its Ricci tensor
, a non-zero tensor of type
, satisfies the equation
, where
represents the scalar curvature and
g is the metric tensor. This relationship encapsulates the intrinsic connection between the Ricci and metric tensors. Einstein manifolds are of significant importance in differential geometry and theoretical physics due to their fundamental role in Riemannian geometry, general theory of relativity, and mathematical physics.
Some generalizations of Einstein manifolds have been defined and studied. Among these, the quasi-Einstein (QE) manifold, introduced by Chaki and Maity [
2], is characterized by its Ricci tensor
, which satisfies
where
and
is 1-form. In addition, the 1-form
is called the associated 1-form. Equation (
1) reveals that QE manifolds become equivalent to Einstein manifolds under the condition
. Several authors have contributed to the development of QE manifold theory by introducing various generalizations. These expansions include, but are not limited to, semi-quasi-Einstein manifolds [
3], generalized quasi-Einstein manifolds [
4,
5,
6,
7], and super quasi-Einstein manifolds [
8,
9,
10].
A Riemannian manifold
is defined as a generalized quasi-Einstein (GQE) manifold [
5] when its Ricci tensor,
, which is nonzero, satisfies
where
, and
,
are a distinct non-zero one-form, which satisfies
with
and
being mutually orthogonal unit vector fields, fulfilling the condition
. These vector fields act as the generators of the GQE manifold.
A Riemannian manifold
is defined as nearly quasi-Einstein (NQE) manifold [
11] if the Ricci tensor
, satisfies
where
,
scalars and
is symmetric tensor of type
.
A Riemannian manifold
is said to be a pseudo quasi-Einstein (PQE) manifold [
12] if the Ricci tensor
, satisfies
where
,
,
and
is 1-form, and
is a symmetric tensor of type
with zero trace, which satisfies
A Riemannian manifold
is defined as a super quasi-Einstein (SQE) manifold [
10] when its Ricci tensor,
, which is nonzero, satisfies
where
and
,
are 1-forms, and
is a symmetric tensor of type
with zero trace, which satisfies
Warped product manifolds have been extensively studied in differential geometry due to their versatile applications and rich geometric structures. In 2018, Pahan, Pal, and Bhattacharyya [
9] explored compact super quasi-Einstein warped products with non-positive scalar curvature, providing insight into the geometric and topological properties of such manifolds. In 2023, Dipankar Debnath [
13] introduced the concept of
-quasi-Einstein warped products for dimensions
, expanding the theoretical framework of warped product geometry. In 2024, Abdallah et al. [
14] characterized warped product manifolds using the
curvature tensor, with applications to relativity. Their study examined how the flatness and symmetry of the
tensor influence both the base manifold and the fiber manifold.
In 2024, Bang-Yen Chen et al. [
15] investigated the effects of quasi-conformal curvature tensors on warped product manifolds, focusing on quasi-conformally flat, quasi-conformally symmetric, and divergence-free scenarios. Blaga and Özgür [
16] explored two-Killing vector fields on multiply warped product manifolds, establishing criteria for lifting vector fields from factor manifolds. Fahad et al. [
17] analyzed concircular trajectories in doubly warped product manifolds, revealing geometric properties related to the Hessian, Riemannian, Ricci, and concircular curvature tensors.
Recently, Vasiulla et al. [
18] investigated generalized quasi-Einstein warped product manifolds under affine connections, extending the study of SQE warped product manifolds and their applications in geometric analysis. These contributions collectively advance our understanding of warped product manifolds in diverse geometric contexts.
In 2004, Chaki [
10] introduced a new manifold of quasi-constant curvature named the manifold of super quasi-constant (SQC) curvature, defined as
where
,
,
,
,
are 1-forms, and
is a symmetric tensor of type
.
2. Preliminaries
In a linear connection, if
, the connection
D on a Riemannian manifold
is referred to as a quarter symmetric metric connection. Otherwise, it is called a quarter-symmetric non-metric connection. If a linear connection is a Levi-Civita connection, it is symmetric. A linear connection
D on
is said to be a quarter symmetric connection if its torsion tensor
satisfies the following relations:
and
where
is one-form on
, and the associated vector field
defined by
for all
.
The relation between the Levi-Civita connection
D and a quarter-symmetric connection
on
is given by [
19]
where
,
are scalar functions.
It is easy to observe the following cases:
- (a)
When , is a semi-symmetric metric connection;
- (b)
When , is a quarter-symmetric metric connection;
- (c)
When , is a quarter-symmetric non-metric connection.
Let
and
represent the curvature tensors of
D and
, respectively. Using Equation (3.13) from [
19], we obtain the following expression for the curvature tensor:
for all vector fields
,
,
on
.
We summarize the paper as follows: After the Introduction and Preliminaries, in
Section 3, we investigate warped product manifolds admitting affine connection, and proved some remarkable results. In
Section 4, we studied SQE warped product manifolds, and obtained several interesting results. To illustrate the existence of these manifolds, we provide three and four examples, both Riemannian and Lorentzian, in
Section 5. Finally, we present an example of warped products on SQE manifolds with affine connections. An example is provided in support of our results in
Section 6.
3. Warped Product Manifolds Admitting Affine Connection
The concept of a warped product generalizes the notion of a revolution surface. It was first introduced in [
20] to study negative curvature manifolds. Let
and
be two Riemannian manifolds with dim
, dim
, and
,
. Consider the product manifold
with its projections
and
. The warped product
is defined as the manifold
equipped with the Riemannian structure such that, for any vector field
on
, the following relation holds:
Thus, we have the desired structure for the warped product,
which holds on
, where
is the base of
,
is the fiber, and
f is the function defined on
, known as the warping function of the warped product [
21].
Since
is a warped product, we have the following relation between the covariant derivatives of vector fields:
for all vector fields
,
on
and
, respectively. Consequently, the curvature
R of the manifold
is expressed as
Let
be a local orthonormal basis, where
are tangential to
and
are tangential to
. In this basis, we have the following expression for the Laplacian of the warping function
f,
for each
[
21].
The two lemmas outlined above provide important results for further work on the study of warped products, particularly in the context of curvature computations and the behavior of vector fields on the base and fiber spaces.
Lemma 1. Let be a warped product, and let be the Riemannian curvature tensor of . Suppose , , and are vector fields on , and P, Q, and are vector fields on . Then, the following hold:
- (i)
;
- (ii)
, where is the Hessian of f;
- (iii)
;
- (iv)
;
- (v)
.
Lemma 2. Let be a warped product, and let be the Ricci tensor. Suppose , , and are vector fields on and Q, are vector fields on . Then, the following hold:
- (i)
;
- (ii)
;
- (iii)
,
where and denotes the Hessian of f and the Laplacian of f given by , respectively.
Moreover, the condition is satisfied by the scalar curvature
of the manifold
where
and
are scalar curvatures of
and
, respectively.
Quan and Yong investigated warped product manifolds with quarter-symmetric connections in their paper [
22], where they presented the four propositions. We refer to Propositions 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, and 3.4, denoted as Propositions 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively, which will help us to prove our results.
Proposition 1. Let be a warped product. Let and denote the Ricci tensors of with respect to the Levi-Civita connection and a quarter-symmetric connection, respectively. Let dim , dim , and dim . If , , Q, and , then the following hold:where and , , is an orthonormal basis of with . Proposition 2. Let be a warped product, dim , dim , dim . If , , Q, and ; then, the following hold: Proposition 3. Let be a warped product, dim , dim , and dim . If , then the following hold: Proposition 4. Let be a warped product, dim , dim , and dim . If , then the following hold: 4. SQE Warped Products
In this section, we investigate SQE warped product manifolds, and present several key results related to their properties.
Theorem 1. Let be a warped product manifold , where I is an open interval in , with dim and dim , and . Then, the following statements hold:
- (i)
If is a SQE manifold with respect to a quarter-symmetric connection, then is a SQE manifold for with respect to the Levi-Civita connection.
- (ii)
If is a SQE manifold with respect to a quarter-symmetric connection, then the warping function f is a constant on I for , provided that .
Proof. Let
and let
be the metric on
I. By taking
and applying Proposition 1, we obtain
for all vector fields
Q,
on
.
Since
is SQE manifolds with respect to quarter-symmetric connection, from (
6), we have
and
Decomposing the vector fields
P and
separately into their components
,
and
,
on
I and
, respectively, we obtain
and
, where
,
are functions on
. Since dim
, we take
, which implies
and
, leading to
. Thus, we have
Using Equations (
13) and (
23), Equations (
21) and (
22) reduce to
and
By comparing the right hand side of Equations (
18) and (
24), we obtain
Similarly, comparing the right hand side of Equations (
20) and (
25), we obtain
This implies that
is a SQE manifold with respect to Levi-Civita connection. For
, by applying Proposition 2, we obtain
for all
. Since
is a SQE manifold, we have
Now,
(as
and
); from (
30), we obtain
From (
31) and (
32), we obtain
which implies that
q is a constant on
I. Therefore,
f is constant on
I.
Now, we consider the warped product with dim , dim , . Under this assumption, we can now proceed to prove the following theorem. □
Theorem 2. Let be a warped product , where dim , dim , and . Then,
- (i)
If is parallel on with respect to the Levi-Civita connection on , f is a constant on , and is a SQE manifold with respect to a quarter-symmetric connection, then - (ii)
f is a constant on if is a SQE manifold with respect to a quarter-symmetric connection for , and .
- (iii)
is a SQE manifold with respect to a quarter-symmetric connection if f is a constant on and is a SQE manifold with respect to the Levi-Civita connection for .
Proof. Let
be a SQE manifold with respect to a quarter-symmetric connection. Then, we have
Decomposing vector fields
P and
Q into components
,
on
,
I, respectively, we write
Since dim
, we can take
and
, which leads to
and
, where
,
are functions on
. From (
35), (
36) and Proposition 1, we obtain
By contracting Equation (
37) over
and
, we derive
Again contracting (
35) over
and
gives
Substituting (
39) into (
38), we obtain
Form Proposition 3, we know that
From (
40) and (
41), we obtain
Since
f is a constant on
and
is parallel, then we obtain
(i) Let
. By Proposition 2, we have
and
Since
is a SQE manifold, the Ricci curvature satisfies
and for
and
, we have
. Substituting this into the expressions above, it follows that
where
. This implies that
f is constant on
.
(ii) Suppose that
is a SQE manifold with respect to the Levi-Civita connection. Then, we have
for all vector fields
,
tangent to
.
From Proposition 2, we know that the Ricci curvature of
is related to that of
by the following equation:
for all
.
Since
f is a constant,
, ∀
. Thus, the equation simplifies to
Now, substituting Equation (
45) into (
46), we obtain
This shows that is a SQE manifold with respect to a quarter-symmetric connection. □
Theorem 3. Let be a warped product manifold of the form . If the two generators P and Q of a SQE manifold are parallel to I with respect to a quarter-symmetric connection, then is a PQE manifold with respect to a quarter-symmetric connection.
Proof. Let
P be a parallel vector field; then,
. Thus,
Consider the following expressions for
P and
Q:
Substituting
and using (
49) in (
6), we obtain
From (
20), we have
for all vector fields
,
on
I.
Since
P is parallel to
I, then, from the above relation,
Comparing (
50) and (
52), we obtain
Making use of (
53) in (
6), we obtain
This shows that PQE manifold with respect to quarter symmetric connection. □
Theorem 4. Let be a warped product of a complete connected k-dimensional Riemannian manifold and -dimensional Riemannian manifold . Then,
- (i)
If is a manifold of SQC curvature, the Hessian of f is proportional to the metric tensor , and the associated vector fields W and are general vector field on or satisfy W, , then is a two-dimensional NQE manifold.
- (ii)
If is a manifold of SQC curvature with associated vector fields W, , then is a NQE manifold.
Proof. Let
be a manifold of SQC curvature. Using Equation (
8), the curvature tensor can be expressed as
for all vector fields
,
,
,
on
.
Decomposing the vector fields
W and
uniquely into components
where
,
and
,
in
and
, respectively. Then,
Making use of (
13) and (
55) in (
54), and applying Lemma 1 with
, where
is an orthonormal basis, we obtain
This shows that is a SQE manifold.
Again, substituting
, we obtain the scalar curvature,
Using Equations (
14) and (
57), we infer
Since the metric tensor
is proportional to the Hesssian of
f, we have
Using (
57) and (
58) in (
59) we obtain
where
. By OBATA’s theorem [
23], in a
-dimensional Euclidean space,
is isometric to the sphere of radius
. This implies
is an Einstein manifold. Since
,
, we conclude
. Thus,
is a two-dimensional NQE manifold.
Suppose the associated vector fields
W,
. Using Equations (
13) and (
54), and substituting
, we derive the following expression:
which shows that
is a SQE manifold.
Now, substituting
in (
60), we obtain
In view of (
13) and (
54) (for
W,
), we derive
Since the metric tensor
is proportional to the Hesssian of
f, it can be expressed as
Using (
61) and (
62) in (
63), we obtain
where
. BY OBATA’s theorem [
23], in a
-dimensional Euclidean space,
is isometric to the sphere of radius
. Therefore,
is an Einstein manifold.
Since and , it follows that . As a result, is a two-dimensional NQE manifold.
Suppose that the associated vector fields
W,
; Relation (
54) reduces to
Making use of (
13) in (
64), we obtain
Contracting (
65) over
and
, we obtain
which shows that
is a NQE manifold with
. □
Theorem 5. Let be a warped product of a complete connected -dimensional Riemannian manifold and a one-dimensional Riemannian manifold I. If is a SQE manifold with constant associated scalars , , and the Hessian of f is proportional to the metric tensor , then is a -dimensional sphere with radius .
Proof. Let
be a warped product manifold. Then, by use of Lemma 2, we can write
for all vector fields
,
on
.
Decomposing the vector fields
P and
uniquely into its components
,
and
,
on
and
I, respectively, we can write
In view of (
6), (
13), and (
68), Relation (
67) can be written as
Contracting above relation over
and
, we obtain
Similarly, contracting (
6) over
and
yields
Making use of (
71) in (
70), we obtain
In view of Lemma 2, we know that
Substituting Equation (
73) into (
72), we obtain
Since the metric tensor
is proportional to the Hesssian of
f, we can write
From Equation (
73), we have
Using Equations (
75) and (
76), we arrive at the relation
Thus, is isometric to the -dimensional sphere of radius . □