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    Radon Transforms and the Rigidity of the Grassmannians (AM-156)
    Radon Transforms and the Rigidity of the Grassmannians (AM-156)
    Radon Transforms and the Rigidity of the Grassmannians (AM-156)
    Ebook457 pages2 hours

    Radon Transforms and the Rigidity of the Grassmannians (AM-156)

    By Jacques Gasqui and Hubert Goldschmidt

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    This book provides the first unified examination of the relationship between Radon transforms on symmetric spaces of compact type and the infinitesimal versions of two fundamental rigidity problems in Riemannian geometry. Its primary focus is the spectral rigidity problem: Can the metric of a given Riemannian symmetric space of compact type be characterized by means of the spectrum of its Laplacian? It also addresses a question rooted in the Blaschke problem: Is a Riemannian metric on a projective space whose geodesics are all closed and of the same length isometric to the canonical metric?


    The authors comprehensively treat the results concerning Radon transforms and the infinitesimal versions of these two problems. Their main result implies that most Grassmannians are spectrally rigid to the first order. This is particularly important, for there are still few isospectrality results for positively curved spaces and these are the first such results for symmetric spaces of compact type of rank >1. The authors exploit the theory of overdetermined partial differential equations and harmonic analysis on symmetric spaces to provide criteria for infinitesimal rigidity that apply to a large class of spaces.


    A substantial amount of basic material about Riemannian geometry, symmetric spaces, and Radon transforms is included in a clear and elegant presentation that will be useful to researchers and advanced students in differential geometry.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPrinceton University Press
    Release dateJan 10, 2009
    ISBN9781400826179
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      Radon Transforms and the Rigidity of the Grassmannians (AM-156) - Jacques Gasqui

      Annals of Mathematics Studies

      Number 156

      Radon Transforms and the Rigidity

      of the Grassmannians

      JACQUES GASQUI

      AND

      HUBERT GOLDSCHMIDT

      PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

      Princeton and Oxford

      2004

      Copyright © 2004 by Princeton University Press

      Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540

      In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 3 Market Place, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1SY

      All Rights Reserved

      Library of Congress Control Number 2003114656

      eISBN: 978-1-40082-617-9

      British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

      The publisher would like to acknowledge the authors of this volume for providing the camera-ready copy from which this book was printed

      Printed on acid-free paper

      pup.princeton.edu

      Printed in the United States of America

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      INTRODUCTION

      CHAPTER I

      SYMMETRIC SPACES AND EINSTEIN MANIFOLDS

      1. Riemannian manifolds

      2. Einstein manifolds

      3. Symmetric spaces

      4. Complex manifolds

      CHAPTER II

      RADON TRANSFORMS ON SYMMETRIC SPACES

      1. Outline

      2. Homogeneous vector bundles and harmonic analysis.

      3. The Guillemin and zero-energy conditions

      4. Radon transforms

      5. Radon transforms and harmonic analysis

      6. Lie algebras

      7. Irreducible symmetric spaces

      8. Criteria for the rigidity of an irreducible symmetric space

      CHAPTER III

      SYMMETRIC SPACES OF RANK ONE

      1. Flat tori

      2. The projective spaces

      3. The real projective space

      4. The complex projective space

      5. The rigidity of the complex projective space

      6. The other projective spaces

      CHAPTER IV

      THE REAL GRASSMANNIANS

      1. The real Grassmannians

      2. The Guillemin condition on the real Grassmannians

      CHAPTER V

      THE COMPLEX QUADRIC

      1. Outline

      2. The complex quadric viewed as a symmetric space

      3. The complex quadric viewed as a complex hypersurface

      4. Local Kahler geometry of the complex quadric

      5. The complex quadric and the real Grassmannians

      6. Totally geodesic surfaces and the infinitesimal orbit of the curvature

      7. Multiplicities

      8. Vanishing results for symmetric forms

      9. The complex quadric of dimension two

      CHAPTER VI

      THE RIGIDITY OF THE COMPLEX QUADRIC

      1. Outline

      2. Total geodesic flat tori of the complex quadric

      3. Symmetric forms on the complex quadric

      4. Computing integrals of symmetric forms

      5. Computing integrals of odd symmetric forms

      6. Bounds for the dimensions of spaces of symmetric forms

      7. The complex quadric of dimension three

      8. The rigidity of the complex quadric

      9. Other proofs of the infinitesimal rigidity of the quadric

      10. The complex quadric of dimension four

      11. Forms of degree one

      CHAPTER VII

      THE RIGIDITY OF THE REAL GRASSMANNIANS

      1. The rigidity of the real Grassmannians

      CHAPTER VIII

      THE COMPLEX GRASSMANNIANS

      1. Outline

      2. The complex Grassmannians

      3. Highest weights of irreducible modules associated with the complex Grassmannians

      4. Functions and forms on the complex Grassmannians

      5. The complex Grassmannians of rank two

      6. The Guillemin condition on the complex Grassmannians

      7. Integrals of forms on the complex Grassmannians

      8. Relations among forms on the complex Grassmannians

      CHAPTER IX

      THE RIGIDITY OF THE COMPLEX GRASSMANNIANS

      1. The rigidity of the complex Grassmannians

      3. The rigidity of the quaternionic Grassmannians

      CHAPTER X

      PRODUCTS OF SYMMETRIC SPACES

      1. Guillemin rigidity and products of symmetric spaces

      2. Conformally flat symmetric spaces

      3. Infinitesimal rigidity of products of symmetric spaces

      REFERENCES

      INTRODUCTION

      This monograph is motivated by a fundamental rigidity problem in Riemannian geometry: determine whether the metric of a given Rieman-nian symmetric space of compact type can be characterized by means of the spectrum of its Laplacian. An infinitesimal isospectral deformation of the metric of such a symmetric space belongs to the kernel of a certain Radon transform defined in terms of integration over the flat totally geodesic tori of dimension equal to the rank of the space. Here we study an infinitesimal version of this spectral rigidity problem: determine all the symmetric spaces of compact type for which this Radon transform is injective in an appropriate sense. We shall both give examples of spaces which are not infinitesimally rigid in this sense and prove that this Radon transform is injective in the case of most Grassmannians.

      At present, it is only in the case of spaces of rank one that infinitesimal rigidity in this sense gives rise to a characterization of the metric by means of its spectrum. In the case of spaces of higher rank, there are no analogues of this phenomenon and the relationship between the two rigidity problems is not yet elucidated. However, the existence of infinitesimal deformations belonging to the kernel of the Radon transform might lead to non-trivial isospectral deformations of the metric.

      Here we also study another closely related rigidity question which arises from the Blaschke problem: determine all the symmetric spaces for which the X-ray transform for symmetric 2-forms, which consists in integrating over all closed geodesics, is injective in an appropriate sense. In the case of spaces of rank one, this problem coincides with the previous Radon transform question. The methods used here for the study of these two problems are similar in nature.

      d of {gt}, is a Lie derivative of the metric g.

      on Z,

      vanishes, where dZ is the Riemannian measure of Z. A symmetric 2form, which is a Lie derivative of the metric, always satisfies the Guillemin condition. Guillemin proved that a symmetric 2-form, which is equal to the infinitesimal deformation of an isospectral deformation of g, satisfies the Guillemin condition. We say that the space (X, g) is rigid in the sense of Guillemin if the following property holds: the only symmetric 2-forms on X satisfying the Guillemin condition are the Lie derivatives of the metric g. Thus if the symmetric space X is rigid in the sense of Guillemin, it is infinitesimally spectrally rigid.

      We are interested in determining which symmetric spaces of compact type are infinitesimally spectrally rigid; in particular, we wish to find those spaces which are rigid in the sense of Guillemin. We show that an arbitrary non-trivial product of irreducible symmetric spaces of compact type, which are not equal to Lie groups, is not rigid in the sense of Guillemin. Consequently, we shall restrict our attention to irreducible spaces. We shall also see below that, in order for an irreducible space to be rigid in the sense of Guillemin, it must be equal to its adjoint space.

      , with n 2, and by Michel [45] and Tsukamoto [53] for the other projective spaces. As we shall explain below, spectral rigidity results for these other projective spaces can be derived from their Guillemin rigidity by means of Kiyohara’s work [38].

      In contrast to the case of negatively curved spaces, at present the problem of isospectrality for positively curved spaces does not admit any truly effective general approach. While the study of the symmetric spaces considered here requires a case by case analysis, we have nevertheless been able to develop criteria for rigidity which can be applied to numerous situations. Several fundamental aspects of differential geometry – the theory of overdetermined partial differential equations, deformation theory of Einstein manifolds, harmonic analysis on symmetric spaces of compact type, the geometry of the Grassmannians and their totally geodesic submanifolds – enter into the elaboration of these criteria and their application to the various spaces. Many of the results, which we present in the process, are of considerable interest in their own right outside the context of deformation theory and spectral rigidity.

      k 2 and we determine all those which are rigid in the sense of Guillemin. In fact, we extend and complete our previous work on the real Grassmannians of rank 2 undertaken in [23]. Harmonic analysis on homogeneous spaces and results concerning the infinitesimal deformations of Einstein metrics also play an important role here.

      In conjunction with the Blaschke conjecture, Michel had previously introduced another notion of rigidity for symmetric spaces; it coincides with Guillemin rigidity for spaces of rank one. We say that a symmetric p-form on an arbitrary symmetric space X satisfies the zero-energy condition if all its integrals over the closed geodesics of X vanish. The space X is said to be infinitesimally rigid if the only symmetric 2-forms on X satisfying the zero-energy condition are the Lie derivatives of the metric. The infinitesimal rigidity of a flat torus of dimension 2 was established by Michel in [46].

      gon X, whose spectrum is equal to that of g and which is sufficiently close to g, is isometric to g.

      = n, is infinitesimally rigid.

      , is infinitesimally rigid. The infinitesimal rigidity of such a Grassmannian, as long as it is not isometric to a

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