[Math] Isometry and geodesic

riemannian-geometry

Let $F: M \rightarrow N$ an isometry and $M,N$ two riemannian manifold. How can I prove that the set of fixed points of F isometry (among riemannian manifold) is a geodesic? In general is it a curve?

Best Answer

See Proposition 24 of Chapter 5, section 10 in Peter Petersen's book Riemannian Geometry, which states the following:

Suppose $S \subset \textrm{Iso}(M,g)$ is a set of isometries. Then each connected component of the fixed point set is a totally geodesic submanifold $X \subset M$. Here totally geodesic means that the second fundamental form of $X$ in $M$ is identically zero.

Thus (as is basically indicated in the comments) it makes sense to look at collections of isometries instead of a single isometry.

In this case, if the fixed point set happens to be one dimensional, it will be a geodesic.

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