Geodesic and conformally Reeb vector fields on flat 3-manifolds
Abstract
A unit vector field on a Riemannian manifold is called geodesic if all of its integral curves are geodesics. We show, in the case of being a flat 3-manifold not equal to , that every such vector field is tangent to a 2-dimensional totally geodesic foliation. Furthermore, it is shown that a geodesic vector field on a closed flat 3-manifold is (up to rescaling) the Reeb vector field of a contact form if and only if there is a contact structure transverse to that is given as the orthogonal complement of some other geodesic vector field. An explicit description of the lifted contact structures (up to diffeomorphism) on the 3-torus is given in terms of the volume of . Finally, similar results for non-closed flat 3-manifolds are discussed.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2207.03274,
title = {Geodesic and conformally Reeb vector fields on flat 3-manifolds},
author = {Tilman Becker},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2207.03274},
year = {2023}
}
Comments
19 pages, 6 figures V2: Minor corrections, added remark following Theorem 1. V3: Corrected a mistake in the statement of Proposition 7