English

Horizontal holonomy and foliated manifolds

Differential Geometry 2015-11-19 v1

Abstract

We introduce horizontal holonomy groups, which are groups defined using parallel transport only along curves tangent to a given subbundle DD of the tangent bundle. We provide explicit means of computing these holonomy groups by deriving analogues of Ambrose-Singer's and Ozeki's theorems. We then give necessary and sufficient conditions in terms of the horizontal holonomy groups for existence of solutions of two problems on foliated manifolds: determining when a foliation can be either (a) totally geodesic or (b) endowed with a principal bundle structure. The subbundle DD plays the role of an orthogonal complement to the leaves of the foliation in case (a) and of a principal connection in case (b).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1511.05830,
  title  = {Horizontal holonomy and foliated manifolds},
  author = {Y. Chitour and E. Grong and F. Jean and P. Kokkonen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1511.05830},
  year   = {2015}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-22T11:48:31.425Z