On the Geometry of Conullity Two Manifolds

Abstract

If $Γ$ is the nullity space of the curvature tensor of a Riemannian manifold $M^n$, it is well known that if its dimension is constant and if $M^n$ is complete then the distribution $Γ$ is completely integrable with flat leaves. The case of $\dim Γ= n-2$ are the so called conullity two manifolds which naturally arise in various geometric contexts. The obstruction to the metric splitting isometrically is a 2x2 matrix which is either nilpotent or invertible. We study the case where it is nilpotent, or equivalently where the scalar curvature is constant along the leaves of $Γ$. When $M^n$ is locally irreducible we show that $M^n$ admits a Lipschitz foliation $F$ by totally geodesic flat hyperplanes and determine the metric on a naturally defined open dense subset in terms of $n-1$ functions, uniquely determined up to isometry. We can also find examples of smooth complete metrics of conullity two where the foliation $F$ is smooth only on the complement of a Cantor set. We furthermore show that the fundamental group is either trivial or infinite cyclic.