Sectional curvature


In Riemannian geometry, the sectional curvature is one of the ways to describe the curvature of Riemannian manifolds. The sectional curvature K depends on a two-dimensional linear subspace σp of the tangent space at a point p of the manifold. It can be defined geometrically as the Gaussian curvature of the surface which has the plane σp as a tangent plane at p, obtained from geodesics which start at p in the directions of σp. The sectional curvature is a real-valued function on the 2-Grassmannian bundle over the manifold.
The sectional curvature determines the curvature tensor completely.

Definition

Given a Riemannian manifold and two linearly independent tangent vectors at the same point, u and v, we can define
Here R is the Riemann curvature tensor, defined here by the convention Some sources use the opposite convention in which case K must be defined with in the numerator instead of
Note that the linear independence of u and v forces the denominator in the above expression to be nonzero, so that K is well-defined. In particular, if u and v are orthonormal, then the definition takes on the simple form
It is straightforward to check that if are linearly independent and span the same two-dimensional linear subspace of as, then So one may consider the sectional curvature as a real-valued function whose input is a two-dimensional linear subspace of a tangent space.

Manifolds with constant sectional curvature

One says that a Riemannian manifold has "constant curvature " if for all two-dimensional linear subspaces and for all
The Schur lemma states that if ' is a connected Riemannian manifold with dimension at least three, and if there is a function such that for all two-dimensional linear subspaces and for all then f must be constant and hence ' has constant curvature.
A Riemannian manifold with constant sectional curvature is called a space form. If denotes the constant value of the sectional curvature, then the curvature tensor can be written as
for any
Proof.
Briefly: one polarization argument gives a formula for a second polarization argument gives a formula for and a combination with the first Bianchi identity recovers the given formula for
From the definition of sectional curvature, we know that whenever are linearly independent, and this easily extends to the case that are linearly dependent since both sides are then zero. Now, given arbitrary u,v,w, compute in two ways. First, according to the above formula, it equals
Secondly, by multilinearity, it equals
which, recalling the Riemannian symmetry can be simplified to
Setting these two computations equal to each other and canceling terms, one finds
Since w is arbitrary this shows that
for any u,v. Now let u,v,w be arbitrary and compute in two ways. Firstly, by this new formula, it equals
Secondly, by multilinearity, it equals which by the new formula equals
Setting these two computations equal to each other shows
Swap and, then add this to the Bianchi identity to get
Subtract these two equations, making use of the symmetry to get
Since any Riemannian metric is parallel with respect to its Levi-Civita connection, this shows that the Riemann tensor of any constant-curvature space is also parallel. The Ricci tensor is then given by and the scalar curvature is In particular, any constant-curvature space is Einstein and has constant scalar curvature.

The model examples

Given a positive number define
  • to be the standard Riemannian structure
  • to be the sphere with given by the pullback of the standard Riemannian structure on by the inclusion map
  • to be the ball with
In the usual terminology, these Riemannian manifolds are referred to as Euclidean space, the n-sphere, and hyperbolic space. Here, the point is that each is a complete connected smooth Riemannian manifold with constant curvature. To be precise, the Riemannian metric has constant curvature 0, the Riemannian metric has constant curvature and the Riemannian metric has constant curvature
Furthermore, these are the 'universal' examples in the sense that if is a smooth, connected, and simply-connected complete Riemannian manifold with constant curvature, then it is isometric to one of the above examples; the particular example is dictated by the value of the constant curvature of according to the constant curvatures of the above examples.
If is a smooth and connected complete Riemannian manifold with constant curvature, but is not assumed to be simply-connected, then consider the universal covering space with the pullback Riemannian metric Since is, by topological principles, a covering map, the Riemannian manifold is locally isometric to, and so it is a smooth, connected, and simply-connected complete Riemannian manifold with the same constant curvature as It must then be isometric one of the above model examples. Note that the deck transformations of the universal cover are isometries relative to the metric
The study of Riemannian manifolds with constant negative curvature, called hyperbolic geometry, is particularly noteworthy as it exhibits many noteworthy phenomena.

Scaling

Let be a smooth manifold, and let be a positive number. Consider the Riemannian manifold The curvature tensor, as a multilinear map is unchanged by this modification. Let be linearly independent vectors in. Then
So multiplication of the metric by multiplies all of the sectional curvatures by

Toponogov's theorem

affords a characterization of sectional curvature in terms of how "fat" geodesic triangles appear when compared to their Euclidean counterparts. The basic intuition is that, if a space is positively curved, then the edge of a triangle opposite some given vertex will tend to bend away from that vertex, whereas if a space is negatively curved, then the opposite edge of the triangle will tend to bend towards the vertex.
More precisely, let M be a complete Riemannian manifold, and let xyz be a geodesic triangle in M. Finally, let m be the midpoint of the geodesic xy. If M has non-negative curvature, then for all sufficiently small triangles
where d is the distance function on M. The case of equality holds precisely when the curvature of M vanishes, and the right-hand side represents the distance from a vertex to the opposite side of a geodesic triangle in Euclidean space having the same side-lengths as the triangle xyz. This makes precise the sense in which triangles are "fatter" in positively curved spaces. In non-positively curved spaces, the inequality goes the other way:
If tighter bounds on the sectional curvature are known, then this property generalizes to give a comparison theorem between geodesic triangles in M and those in a suitable simply connected space form; see Toponogov's theorem. Simple consequences of the version stated here are:
  • A complete Riemannian manifold has non-negative sectional curvature if and only if the function is 1-concave for all points p.
  • A complete simply connected Riemannian manifold has non-positive sectional curvature if and only if the function is 1-convex.

    Manifolds with non-positive sectional curvature

In 1928, Élie Cartan proved the Cartan–Hadamard theorem: if M is a complete manifold with non-positive sectional curvature, then its universal cover is diffeomorphic to a Euclidean space. In particular, it is aspherical: the homotopy groups for i ≥ 2 are trivial. Therefore, the topological structure of a complete non-positively curved manifold is determined by its fundamental group. Preissman's theorem restricts the fundamental group of negatively curved compact manifolds. The Cartan–Hadamard conjecture states that the classical isoperimetric inequality should hold in all simply connected spaces of non-positive curvature, which are called Cartan-Hadmard manifolds.

Manifolds with positive sectional curvature

Little is known about the structure of positively curved manifolds. The soul theorem implies that a complete non-compact non-negatively curved manifold is diffeomorphic to a normal bundle over a compact non-negatively curved manifold. As for compact positively curved manifolds, there are two classical results:
  • It follows from the Myers theorem that the fundamental group of such manifold is finite.
  • It follows from the Synge theorem that the fundamental group of such manifold in even dimensions is 0, if orientable and otherwise. In odd dimensions a positively curved manifold is always orientable.
Moreover, there are relatively few examples of compact positively curved manifolds, leaving a lot of conjectures. The most typical way of constructing new examples is the following corollary from the O'Neill curvature formulas: if is a Riemannian manifold admitting a free isometric action of a Lie group G, and M has positive sectional curvature on all 2-planes orthogonal to the orbits of G, then the manifold with the quotient metric has positive sectional curvature. This fact allows one to construct the classical positively curved spaces, being spheres and projective spaces, as well as these examples :
  • The Berger spaces and.
  • The Wallach spaces :, and.
  • The Aloff–Wallach spaces.
  • The Eschenburg spaces
  • The Bazaikin spaces, where.

    Manifolds with non-negative sectional curvature

Cheeger and Gromoll proved their soul theorem which states that any non-negatively curved complete non-compact manifold has a totally convex compact submanifold such that is diffeomorphic to the normal bundle of.
Such an is called the soul of.
In particular, this theorem implies that is homotopic to its soul which has the dimension less than.

Manifolds with almost flat curvature

Manifolds with almost non-negative curvature

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