Lie Groups – Geometry of S² × ?

3dgeometric-topologyhomogeneous-spaceslie-groupssmooth-manifolds

There are exactly four compact manifolds with $ S^2 \times R $ geometry. They are
$$
S^2 \times S^1 , \mathbb{RP}_2 \times S^1, M_2, \mathbb{RP}_3\# \mathbb{RP}_3
$$

where $ M_2 $ denotes the mapping torus of an orientation reversing isometry of the sphere $ S^2 $.

I am curious about these manifolds:

  • $\mathbb{RP}_2 \times S^1, M_2 $ are both nonorientable. And $ \mathbb{RP}_2 \times S^1 $ has orientable double cover $ S^2 \times S^1 $. What is the orientable double cover of $ M_2 $?

  • In www2.math.umd.edu/~wmg/icm.pdf page 8 claims that all these manifolds are quotients of $ S^2 \times S^1 $. How can I see that $ \mathbb{RP}_3\# \mathbb{RP}_3 $ and $ M_2 $ are quotients of $ S^2 \times S^1 $?

  • $ \mathbb{RP}_2\# \mathbb{RP}_2 $ (the klein bottle) has a transitive action by the group $ E_2 $ of isometries of the flat plane . Does $ \mathbb{RP}_3\# \mathbb{RP}_3 $ (the 3d Klein bottle) also admit a transitive action by some non compact group? This article
    https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00967152
    seems to be claiming that the group $ E_3 $ of isometries of flat 3 space acts transitively on $ \mathbb{RP}_3\# \mathbb{RP}_3 $. Can someone describe this action? What closed subgroup of $ E_3 $ can I quotient by to get $ \mathbb{RP}_3\# \mathbb{RP}_3 $?

Best Answer

$\newcommand{\Number}[1]{\mathbf{#1}}\newcommand{\Reals}{\Number{R}}\newcommand{\Cpx}{\Number{C}}\newcommand{\Proj}{\mathbf{P}}\newcommand{\CSum}{\mathop{\#}}$All four manifolds are double-covered by the product $S^{2} \times S^{1}$. These coverings may be represented conveniently by writing $(x, z)$ for the general element of $S^{2} \times S^{1} \subset \Reals^{3} \times \Cpx$:

  • The quotient by $(x, z) \mapsto (-x, z)$ is $\Reals\Proj^{2} \times S^{1}$. A fundamental domain is a closed hemisphere times the circle.
  • The quotient by $(x, z) \mapsto (-x, -z)$ is the mapping cylinder of the antipodal map of $S^{2}$. A fundamental domain is the sphere cross half the circle, i.e., $S^{2} \times [0, 1]$, and $(x, 0) \sim (-x, 1)$.
  • The quotient by $(x, z) \mapsto (-x, \bar{z})$ is the connected sum $\Reals\Proj^{3} \CSum\Reals\Proj^{3}$. A fundamental domain is the sphere cross half the circle, this time with boundary identification $(x, 0) \sim (-x, 0)$ and $(x, 1) \sim (-x, 1)$. To see this is a connected sum of two $\Reals\Proj^{3}$s, note that projective space itself may be viewed as a closed ball in $\Reals^{3}$ with antipodal identification on the boundary. Removing a ball from this amounts to removing a concentric ball, i.e., identifying $(x, 0) \sim (-x, 0)$ in $S^{2} \times [0, 1]$.
  • Just for completeness, $(x, z) \mapsto (x, z^{2})$ is a double-covering of $S^{2} \times S^{1}$ over itself.

Incidentally, the isometry group of a flat Klein bottle does not act transitively: A flat Klein bottle may be viewed as a quotient of the flat cylinder $\Reals \times S^{1}$ under the mapping $(t, z) \mapsto (t + 1, \bar{z})$. Consequently, an isometry of the Klein bottle lifts to an invariant isometry of the cylinder, and conversely every invariant isometry of the cylinder descends. Translations along the $\Reals$ factor descend, as does the reflection $(t, z) \mapsto (t, \bar{z})$, but rotations of the $S^{1}$ factor do not. Geometrically, there are two distinguished circles on a flat Klein bottle coming from central circles on two flat Möbius strips. The "nearby" local sections of the non-trivial circle bundle over $S^{1}$ are topologically circles mapping $2$-to$1$ to the "central" circles.

The isometries of $\Reals\Proj^{3} \CSum\Reals\Proj^{3}$ may be analyzed similarly; here we seek isometries of $\Reals \times S^{2}$ commuting with $(t, x) \mapsto (t + 1, -x)$. Here, every orthogonal transformation of Euclidean three-space descends to an isometry of the quotient.