On the critical points of the energy functional on vector fields of a Riemannian manifold

TL;DR

This paper studies the critical points of an energy functional on vector fields of Riemannian manifolds, showing how symmetry and invariance influence these points and characterizing spheres via lower bounds related to Ricci curvature.

Contribution

It introduces a G-symmetrization process, analyzes critical points under symmetry constraints, and characterizes spheres through Ricci curvature bounds on certain Riemannian manifolds.

Findings

Critical points of the energy functional are preserved under G-invariance.

The infimum of the energy functional on spheres is achieved by specific invariant vector fields.

Spheres are characterized by a Ricci curvature lower bound related to the energy functional.

Abstract

Given a compact Lie subgroup $G$ of the isometry group of a compact Riemannian manifold $M$ with a Riemannian connection $\nabla,$ it is introduced a $G-$symmetrization process of a vector field of $M$ and it is proved that the critical points of the energy functional \[ F(X):=\frac{\int_{M}\left\Vert \nabla X\right\Vert ^{2}dM}{\int_{M}\left\Vert X\right\Vert ^{2}dM}% \] on the space of $\ G-$invariant vector fields are critical points of $F$ on the space of all vector fields of $M,$ and that this inclusion may be strict in general. One proves that the infimum of $F$ on $\mathbb{S}^{3}$ is not assumed by a $\mathbb{S}^{3}-$invariant vector field. It is proved that the infimum of $F$ on a sphere $\mathbb{S}^{n},$ $n\geq2,$ of radius $1/k,$ is $k^{2},$ and is assumed by a vector field invariant by the isotropy subgroup of the isometry group of $\mathbb{S}^{n}$ at any given point of $\mathbb{S}% ^{n}.$ It is proved that if $G$ is a compact Lie subgroup of the isometry group of a compact rank $1$ symmetric space $M$ which leaves pointwise fixed a totally geodesic submanifold of dimension bigger than or equal to $1$ then all the critical points of $F$ are assumed by a $G-$invariant vector field. Finally, it is obtained a characterization of the spheres by proving that on a certain class of Riemannian compact manifolds $M$ that contains rotationally symmetric manifolds and rank $1$ symmetric spaces$,$ with positive Ricci curvature $\operatorname*{Ric}\nolimits_{M}$, $F$ has the lower bound $\operatorname*{Ric}\nolimits_{M}/\left( n-1\right) $ among the $G-$ invariant vector fields, where $G$ is the isotropy subgroup of the isometry group of $M$ at a point of $M,$ and that his lower bound is attained if and only if $M$ is a sphere of radius $1/\sqrt{\operatorname*{Ric}\nolimits_{M}}.$