English

Calibrations for the Sasaki volume on odd spheres and the no-gap problem

Differential Geometry 2026-03-04 v2 Analysis of PDEs

Abstract

For each odd sphere SnS^n with n=2m+15n=2m+1\ge 5, we consider the Sasaki volume functional VolS(V)=Sndet(I+(V)(V))dvol\mathrm{Vol}^S(V)=\int_{S^n}\sqrt{\det(I+(\nabla V)^\top(\nabla V))}\,d\mathrm{vol} on smooth unit tangent vector fields VV. Using the Gluck--Ziller calibration ω=aΘ\omega=a\wedge\Theta on the unit tangent bundle E=UTSnE=UT S^n (extended to constant sectional curvature by Brito--Chac\'on--Naveira), we establish the universal calibrated lower bound VolS(V)c(m;1)vol(Sn)\mathrm{Vol}^S(V)\ge c(m;1)\,\mathrm{vol}(S^n), where c(m;1)=4m/(2mm)c(m;1)=4^m/\binom{2m}{m}. In the relaxed (integral-current) setting, we show that the section-constrained stable mass in EE equals the calibration value and is attained by an ω\omega-calibrated mass-minimizing integral nn-cycle in the section class. We also analyze the equality case on smooth graphs. If a smooth graph is ω\omega-calibrated on an open set, then it satisfies the rigidity system VV=0\nabla_V V=0 and XV=λX\nabla_X V=\lambda X for all XVX\perp V, hence is locally a radial distance-gradient field. In particular, for m2m\ge 2 there is no smooth unit field on SnS^n whose graph is ω\omega-calibrated everywhere. Finally, we construct an explicit smooth recovery sequence (presented in detail for S5S^5 and then extended to all odd dimensions) and prove a uniform nonvanishing estimate for the polar-shell normalization in the patching construction. As a consequence, infVVolS(V)=c(m;1)vol(Sn)\inf_V \mathrm{Vol}^S(V)=c(m;1)\,\mathrm{vol}(S^n), so there is no Lavrentiev gap.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.22961,
  title  = {Calibrations for the Sasaki volume on odd spheres and the no-gap problem},
  author = {Jonas Matuzas},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.22961},
  year   = {2026}
}