The Bochner formula for Riemannian flows

Abstract

In this paper, we consider a Riemannian manifold (M, g) endowed with a Riemannian flow and we study the curvature term in the Bochner-Weitzenb{\"o}ck formula of the basic Laplacian on M. We prove that this term splits into two parts. The first part depends mainly on the curvature operator of the underlying manifold M and the second part is expressed in terms of the O'Neill tensor of the flow. After getting a lower bound for this term, depending on these two parts, we establish an eigenvalue estimate of the basic Laplacian on basic forms. We then discuss the limiting case of the estimate and prove that when equality occurs, the manifold M is a local product. This paper follows mainly the approach in [21].