Second order geometric flows on foliated manifolds

Abstract

We prove a general result about the short time existence and uniqueness of second order geometric flows transverse to a Riemannian foliation on a compact manifold. Our result includes some flows already existing in literature, as the transverse Ricci flow, the Sasaki-Ricci flow and the Sasaki J-flow and motivates the study of other evolution equations. We also introduce a transverse version of the Kaehler-Ricci flow adapting some classical results to the foliated case.