Riemannian Geometry – Invariant Description of Weitzenböck Curvature Operator by Bourguignon

curvatureriemannian-geometry

I recently came across the paper Les variétés de dimension 4 à signature non nulle dont
la courbure est harmonique sont d’Einstein
by Jean Pierre Bourguignon. What he shows in §8 is that the Weitzenböck curvature operator $\mathfrak{Ric}_\text{R}$ on $p$-forms is given by $$\mathfrak{Ric}_\text{R}(\omega)(X_1,\dots,X_p) = (\hat{\omega} \circ \hat{R_p})(X_1,\dots,X_p)$$
where
$$R_p = \left(\tfrac{1}{2(p-1)}\text{Ric} \mathbin{\bigcirc\mspace{-19mu}\wedge\mspace{3mu}} \text{g} – \text{Rm}\right) \mathbin{\bigcirc\mspace{-19mu}\wedge\mspace{3mu}} \text{g}^{p-2}.$$
Here, I just can't figure out what he means by $\hat{\omega} \circ \hat{R_p}$.

Earlier in the paper he defines (in (2.11)) for a $C \in S^2\Lambda^{2}V$, interpreted as a self-adjoint map $\Lambda^{2}V \to \Lambda^{2}V$, and a form $\eta \in \Lambda^2(V)$, that $$\hat{C}(\eta) = \sum\limits_{i,j = 1}^n \eta(e_i,e_j)C(e_{i},e_{j})$$ for an orthonormal basis $(e_i)_{1 \le i \le n}$ of $V$.

I see how this can be generalized into:
For a $C \in S^2\Lambda^{p}V$, interpreted as a self-adjoint map $\Lambda^{p}V \to \Lambda^{p}V$, and a form $\eta \in \Lambda^p(V)$, define $$\hat{C}(\eta) = \sum\limits_{i_1, \dots, i_p = 1}^n \eta(e_{i_1},\dots,e_{i_p})C(e_{i_1},\dots,e_{i_p})$$ for an orthonormal basis $(e_i)_{1 \le i \le n}$ of $V$.
And I am thinking that this is what he means here for $C = R_k$. But this still doesn't answer what $\hat{\omega}$ would be.

I am thinking that $(\hat{\omega} \circ \hat{R_p})$ may just mean $\hat{R_p}(\omega)$; but why wouldn't he have written it like this then? Probably I am missing something central here..

The paper can be found here for free:
Les variétés de dimension 4 à signature non nulle dont la courbure est harmonique sont d’Einstein by Jean Pierre Bourguignon

Best Answer

I think the idea is to think of $\hat{R}_p$ as a mapping from $\Lambda^pM$ to itself, and $\hat{\omega}$ as a mapping from $\Lambda^pM$ to $E$ (the vector bundle in which $\omega$ takes values), and then just compose these two operators (to get something $E$ valued in the end).

In the case where $E$ is the trivial (scalar) bundle, it works out to be $\hat{R}_p(\omega)$ since $R_p$ is symmetric.

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