1. Introduction
Contact Riemannian geometry is of growing interest to mathematicians because of its importance for physics, e.g., [
1]. A metric
f-structure on a smooth manifold
, see [
2,
3], as a higher-dimensional analog of a contact metric structure (
), is defined by a skew-symmetric (1,1)-tensor
f of rank
, orthonormal vector fields
, and their dual 1-forms
such that
A metric
f-structure is a special case of an almost product structure (with Naveira’s 36 distinguished classes, see [
4]), defined by complementary orthogonal distributions
and
. For an
f-contact manifold, the
s-dimensional distribution
is tangent to a totally geodesic foliation, which is spanned by Killing vector fields
. Such so-called
-foliation is defined by a homomorphism of an
s-dimensional Lie algebra
to the Lie algebra of all vector fields on
M, for example, [
5]. The recent interest of geometers in
f-structures is motivated by the study of the topology and dynamics of contact foliations, especially the existence of closed leaves. Contact foliations generalize to higher dimensions the flow of the Reeb vector field on contact manifolds, and
K-structures are a particular case of contact structures, see [
6]. A special class of
f-manifolds, known as Kenmotsu
f-manifolds, see [
7,
8,
9,
10] (Kenmotsu manifolds when
, see [
11]), can be characterized in terms of warped products of
and Kähler manifolds.
In [
5], we defined metric structures that generalize Hermitian—more specifically, Kähler—structures, as well as metric
f-structures, in particular,
-,
-, K-, and
f-K- contact structures. These so-called “weak”
f-structures (i.e., the complex structure is replaced by a nonsingular skew-symmetric tensor) are useful for studying totally geodesic and totally umbilical foliations, Killing fields, and Einstein-type metrics, and they allow a fresh look at the classical theory. A weak metric
f-structure is a special case of an almost product structure, defined by two complementary orthogonal distributions
and
of
. Foliations appear when one or both distributions are involutive. Weak metric
f-manifolds form a broad class as follows: a warped product of a Euclidean space
and a weak Kähler manifold (Definition 4 and Example 1) is a weak
-Kenmotsu
f-manifold (Definition 3), and the metric product of
and a weak Kähler manifold is a weak
-manifold.
Solutions of some non-linear partial differential equations decompose at large time
t into solitary waves running with constant speed—the so-called solitons. Ricci solitons (
RS)
(where
£ is the Lie derivative,
V a vector field, and
is a real constant), as self-similar solutions of the Ricci flow
, generalize (when
) the Einstein metrics
; see [
12]. The Ricci flow and RS were studied for Hermitian and Kähler manifolds, as well as for almost contact metrics—in particular, Sasakian—manifolds. Since some compact manifolds (and
f-K-contact manifolds) do not admit Einstein metrics. Cho-Kimura [
13] generalized the notion of RS to
-
RS as follows:
where
is a 1-form on
M. If
V is a Killing vector field, then (
1) reduces to an
-Einstein structure, which is defined by
The following questions arise (see [
1,
13]): How do RS interact with weak
f-structures? Does a weak metric
f-manifold equipped with RS carry Einstein-type metrics? In this paper, we introduce weak
-Kenmotsu
f-manifolds (
-
KM)—see Definition 3—as a generalization of K. Kenmotsu’s concept, and explore their properties and geometrical interpretations. We study when a weak
-KM (it cannot be an Einstein manifold) equipped with an
-RS structure (
16) carries an
-Einstein metric (
15) of constant scalar curvature.
The paper consists of an introduction and four sections. In
Section 2, we review the basics of the weak metric
f-structure. In
Section 3 and
Section 4, we introduce weak
-KM (weak
f-KM when
, and weak
-manifolds when
), derive their fundamental properties (Theorem 1); give their geometrical interpretation in terms of the twisted structure (Theorem 2); and prove that a weak
-KM with a
-parallel Ricci tensor is an
-Einstein manifold (Theorem 3). In
Section 5, we study the interaction of weak
-KM with
-RS. We prove that an additional
-Einstein structure ensures the constancy of the scalar curvature (Theorem 4). We then show that if a weak
-KM with
is an
-RS whose non-zero potential vector field, either a contact vector field (Theorem 5) or collinear with
(Theorem 6), then it is an
-Einstein manifold. The results generalize some theorems in [
14], where
and can be extended to the case
.
2. Preliminaries: Weak Metric f-Manifolds
In this section, we review the basics of a weak metric
f-structure as a higher-dimensional analog of the weak almost contact metric structure; see [
5,
15]. First, we generalize the notion of the framed
f-structure, see [
2,
3,
16], called the
-structure in [
9].
Definition 1 (see [
5])
. A weak metric f-structure on a smooth manifold is a set , where f is a skew-symmetric -tensor of rank ; Q is a self-adjoint nonsingular -tensor; are orthonormal vector fields; are dual 1-forms; g is a Riemannian metric on M, satisfyingand is called a weak metric f-manifold. Assume that the distribution
is
f-invariant; thus,
,
, and
Using the above, the distribution
is spanned by
and is invariant for
Q. We define a (1,1)-tensor
by
, and we note that
and
. We also obtain
. Putting
in (
4), we obtain
; thus, each
is orthogonal to
. Therefore,
splits as complementary orthogonal sum of its sub-bundles
and
—an almost product structure.
A distribution (whether integrable or not) is said to be totally geodesic if its second fundamental form vanishes as follows: for any vector fields — this is the case when any geodesic of M that is tangent to at one point is tangent to at all its points. By Frobenius’ theorem, any involutive distribution is integrable, i.e., it is tangent to the leaves of the foliation. Any integrable and totally geodesic distribution determines a totally geodesic foliation.
A weak metric
f-structure
is said to be
normal if the following tensor is zero:
The Nijenhuis torsion of a (1,1)-tensor
S and the derivative of a 1-form
are given by
Using the Levi-Civita connection ∇ of
g, one can rewrite
as
The following tensors (see [
15]):
and
, are well known for metric
f-manifolds as follows [
2]:
Remark 1. Let be a weak metric f-manifold. Consider the product manifold , where is a Euclidean space with a basis . Define tensor J on by , where . Tensors and appear from the condition when we express the normality condition .
Proposition 1 (see [
15])
. The condition for a weak metric f-structure impliesIn this case, is a totally geodesic distribution.
The fundamental 2-form
on
is defined by
for all
. Recall the co-boundary formula for the exterior derivative of a 2-form
,
Proposition 2 (see [
15])
. For a weak metric f-structure, we obtainwhere is the tensor field acting as Let
be a (1,1)-tensor adjoint to the Ricci tensor—the suitable trace of the curvature tensor—expressed as follows:
The scalar curvature of a Riemannian manifold
is defined as
The following formulas are well known, e.g., ([
17], Equations (6) and (7)):
Definition 2. A weak metric f-manifold is said to be η-Einstein, if An η-RS on a weak metric f-manifold is defined bywhere V is a smooth vector field on M and λ and μ are real constants. If
V is a Killing vector field, i.e.,
, then (
16) reduces to (
15) with
and
. Taking the trace of (
15) gives the scalar curvature
. For
and
, the definitions (
15) and (
16) are well known for almost contact metric manifolds as follows: (
16) reduces to an
-RS (
1), and (
15) reduces to an
-Einstein metric (
2).
3. Geometry of Weak -KM
In the following definition, we generalize the notions of
-KM (
),
f-KM (
,
)— see [
8,
9,
10,
17]—and weak
-KM (
)—see [
14].
Definition 3. A weak metric f-manifold will be called a weak -KM (a weak f-KM) when , ifwhere , , and . For , (
17)
defines a weak -manifold. Note that
and
. Taking
in (
17) and using
, we obtain
, which implies
. This and the first equality in (
7) give
thus,
of a weak
-KM is tangent to a foliation with flat totally geodesic leaves.
Lemma 1. For a weak -KM, the following formulas are true: Proof. Taking
in (
17) and using
and
, we obtain
. Since
f is non-degenerate on
and has rank
, we obtain
. The inner product with
gives
. Using (
7) and (
18), we find
; hence,
. This proves (
19). Using
and (
19), we obtain (
20). □
The following result generalizes Theorem 3.4 in [
10].
Theorem 1. A weak metric f-manifold is a weak -KM if and only if the following conditions hold: Proof. Let (
17) be true. Using (
19), we obtain
for all
. By (
22),
is true. Thus, for
, we obtain
which signifies the integrability of the distribution
, or equivalently,
, for all
and
. By this and
, see (
6), we find
. Using (
17) and (
8), we obtain
On the other hand, we have
Thus,
is valid. By (
5) with
and (
17), we obtain
; thus, using
, yields
. Finally, from (
9), using (
3) and (
4), we obtain
From this, using (
17), we obtain
.
Conversely, using (
3) and (
21) in (
9), we obtain
thus, (
17) is true. □
Definition 4 ([
14])
. An even-dimensional Riemannian manifold equipped with a skew-symmetric (1,1)
-tensor J (other than a complex structure) is called a weak Hermitian manifold if is negative definite. If , where is the Levi-Civita connection of , then is called a weak Kähler manifold. Remark 2. L. P. Eisenhart [18] proved that if a Riemannian manifold admits a parallel symmetric 2-tensor other than the constant multiple of , then it is reducible. Some authors studied and classified (skew-)symmetric parallel 2-tensors, e.g., [19,20]. Let be a Riemannian manifold. A twisted product is the product with the metric , where is a smooth function on M. Set . The Levi-Civita connections, ∇ of g and of , are related as follows:
- (i)
, for .
- (ii)
, where is the orthoprojector.
- (iii)
is the lift of , where is the orthoprojector.
If is a smooth function on , then we obtain a warped product .
Theorem 2. A weak -KM is a locally twisted product , where is a weak Hermitian manifold (a warped product if , and then is a weak Kähler manifold), , and is the mean curvature vector of the distribution .
Proof. By (
18), the distribution
is tangent to a foliation with flat totally geodesic leaves, and by the second equality of (
7), the distribution
is tangent to a foliation. By (
19), the Weingarten operator
on
is conformal as follows:
. Hence,
is tangent to a totally umbilical foliation with the mean curvature vector
. By Theorem 1 [
21], our manifold is a locally twisted product. By the above property (ii) of a twisted product,
is true. If
, then we obtain a locally warped product; see [
21] (Proposition 3). By (
4), the (1,1)-tensor
is skew-symmetric and
is negative definite. To show
, using (
17), we find
for
. □
Example 1. (a) According to [18], a weak Kähler manifold with , where , is reducible. Take two (or even more) Hermitian manifolds , whence . The product , where are different constants, is a weak Hermitian manifold with . Moreover, if are Kähler manifolds, then is a weak Kähler manifold. (b) Let be a weak Kähler manifold and a function on Euclidean space , where and β are constants. Then, the warped product manifold has a weak metric f-structure which satisfies (
17).
Using (
5)
with for a weak Kähler manifold, we obtain ; hence, is true. Corollary 1. A weak f-KM is a locally warped product , where and is a weak Kähler manifold.
To simplify the calculations in the rest of the paper, we assume that .