Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T19:42:37.660Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Parallel metrics and reducibility of the holonomy group

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 April 2009

Richard Atkins
Affiliation:
Faculty of Natural and Applied Sciences, Trinity Western University, 7600 Glover Road Langley, BC, V2Y 1Y1, Canada, e-mail: [email protected]
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

In this paper we investigate the relationship between the existence of parallel semi-Riemannian metrics of a connection and the reducibility of the associated holonomy group. The question as to whether the holonomy group necessarily reduces in the presence of a specified number of independent parallel semi-Riemannian metrics is completely determined by the the signature of the metrics and the dimension d of the manifold, when d ≠ 4. In particular, the existence of two independent, parallel semi-Riemannian metrics, one of which having signature (p,q) with pq, implies the holonomy group is reducible. The (p,p) cases, however, may allow for more than one parallel metric and yet an irreducible holonomy group: for n = 2m, m ≥ 3, there exist connections on Rn with irreducible infinitesimal holonomy and which have two independent, parallel metrics of signature (m,m). The case of four-dimensional manifolds, however, depends on the topology of the manifold in question: the presence of three parallel metrics always implies reducibility but reducibility in the case of two metrics of signature (2,2) is guaranteed only for simply connected manifolds. The main theorem in the paper is the construction of a topologically non-trivial four-dimensional manifold with a connection that admits two independent metrics of signature (2,2) and yet has irreducible holonomy. We provide a complete solution to the general problem.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Australian Mathematical Society 2006

References

[1]Donaldson, S.K., ‘An application of gauge theory to the topology of 4-manifolds’, J. Differential Geom. 18 (1983), p. 279315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[2]Freedman, M., ‘There is no room to spare in four dimensional space’, Notices Amer. Math. Soc. 31 (1984), 36.Google Scholar
[3]Hall, G.S. and McIntosh, C.B.G., ‘Algebraic determination of the metric from the curvature in general relativity’, Internat. J. Theoret. Phys. 22 (1983), 469476.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[4]Ihrig, E., ‘An exact determination of the gravitational potentials gij in terms of the gravitational fields ’, J. Math. Phys. 16 (1975), 5455.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[5]Kobayashi, S. and Nomizu, K., Foundations of differential geometry, Volume I (Wiley, New York, 1963).Google Scholar
[6]Martin, G.K. and Thompson, G., ‘Non-uniqueness of the metric in Lorentzian manifolds’, Pacific J. Math. 158 (1993), 177187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[7]Willmore, T.J., An introduction to differential geometry (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1959).Google Scholar