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A connected complete Riemannian manifold that is disconnected at infinity contains a line in a Riemannian manifold. Choose points escaping in two components outside a fixed compact set and join them by minimizing geodesics. Each segment crosses the compact set. Parametrize from a crossing point; both parameter endpoints tend to infinity in opposite directions. Compactness of the unit tangent vectors over the crossing set gives a subsequence converging to an entire geodesic. Every finite subsegment is minimizing by continuity of distance, so the limit is a line.

On a compact oriented Riemannian manifold without boundary, a smooth $(n-p)$-form $\chi$ annihilates all harmonic $p$-forms under wedge integration exactly when its harmonic projection vanishes. Indeed ${\int }_M\phi \wedge \chi =⟨\ast \phi ,\chi {⟩}_{L^2}$, and the Hodge star maps ${\mathcal{H}}^p$ isomorphically onto ${\mathcal{H}}^{n-p}$. By the Hodge decomposition theorem, this annihilator isThus both exact and coexact additions are allowed; a harmonic representative is unique. The potentials of these additions need not be unique, and out-of-range degree spaces are zero. For a concrete coexact ambiguity, take the torus $(\mathbb{R}/2\pi \mathbb{Z}{)}^2$ with metric $d{x}^2+d{y}^2$. The form $\chi =\delta (\sin ydx\wedge dy)=\cos ydx$ annihilates every harmonic one-form by orthogonality, yet $d\chi =\sin ydx\wedge dy$ is nonzero. Thus an annihilating representative need not even be closed, let alone exact.

Analytic torsion is a spectral invariant constructed from regularized determinants of the Laplacians on differential forms with suitable flat coefficients. It is the analytic counterpart of combinatorial Reidemeister torsion, whose refinements include Turaev torsion; equality theorems relate the spectral and combinatorial invariants under appropriate hypotheses on the manifold and coefficients.

The arc length of a piecewise smooth curve $\gamma :[a,b]\to M$ on a Riemannian manifold is the integral of its speed:An odometer measures this accumulated travel rather than displacement between the endpoints. In Euclidean space, the Riemannian metric is the ordinary inner product, so the formula becomes ${\int }_a^b\sqrt{{\sum }_i{\dot{\gamma }}_i(t{)}^2}dt$.

For a circle of radius $R$ traversed through an angle $\alpha$, use $\gamma (t)=(R\cos (\alpha t),R\sin (\alpha t))$, $0\le t\le 1$. Its speed is $R|\alpha |$, hence its arc length is $R|\alpha |$. Traversing a full circle twice gives $4\pi R$, even though the starting and ending points coincide. The same formula measures the two great circle arcs pictured in geodesic.

The curve parameter controls how fast the journey happens, not its arc length. A regular increasing or decreasing reparametrization preserves the integral by change of variables; reversing direction leaves the speed norm unchanged. Retracing part of a route does add length, because it changes the actual journey.

On a closed connected Riemannian manifold with nonnegative Ricci curvature, harmonic one-forms are parallel under nonnegative Ricci curvature. Evaluation at one point injects their space into the cotangent space. The Hodge decomposition theorem identifies its dimension with the first Betti number, giving $b_1(M)\le \dim M$. For example, a genus-two closed orientable surface times a circle has dimension three and first Betti number five, so no Riemannian metric on that product has nonnegative Ricci curvature.

For a complete connected $n$-dimensional Riemannian manifold with nonnegative Ricci curvature, the displayed ratio is nonincreasing, tends to one at zero, and is at most one. In particular $\mathrm{Vol}B(p,r)\le {\omega }_n{r}^n$. In geodesic polar coordinates, the radial Jacobi field determinant is at most the Euclidean density $r^{n-1}$ until the cut time. The trace of the radial Riccati equation for distance spheres, with Cauchy-Schwarz inequality, proves this comparison. Equality for every radius forces the Euclidean polar metric and absence of a cut locus.

For a complete connected $n$-dimensional Riemannian manifold with $\mathrm{Ric}\ge (n-1)kg$, $k>0$, put $D=\pi /\sqrt{k}$ andHere ${\omega }_{n-1}$ is the area of the unit $(n-1)$-sphere, and $v_k(r)$ is the Riemannian volume of a radius-$r$ ball in the round curvature-$k$ sphere. The Bishop-Gromov inequality asserts that $V_p(r)/v_k(r)$ is nonincreasing for $0<r<D$, tends to one at zero, and is at most one. In geodesic polar coordinates, the radial volume density before the cut time is at most $s_k(t{)}^{n-1}$. The bound uses trace Ricci curvature; with normalized Ricci curvature it reads $\overline{\mathrm{Ric}}\ge kg$.

On a closed Riemannian manifold, a Killing vector field $X$ satisfies ${\nabla }^{\ast }\nabla X={\mathrm{Ric}}^{♯}X$ for the nonnegative rough Laplacian. This follows by differentiating ${\nabla }_i{X}_j+{\nabla }_j{X}_i=0$, contracting and commuting covariant derivatives; the contraction also gives $\mathrm{div}X=0$. Taking the inner product with $X$ and using integration by parts gives the displayed identity. If Ricci curvature is nonpositive, the nonnegative left side must vanish, so $X$ is a parallel vector field. In particular every Killing vector field on a closed flat Riemannian manifold is a parallel vector field.

A linear isometry between tangent spaces of complete simply connected Riemannian manifolds extends to a global isometry when parallel transport along corresponding broken geodesics identifies their Riemann curvature tensors. In particular, complete simply connected manifolds of the same dimension and constant sectional curvature are isometric: their curvature tensors are determined by that common constant and their Riemannian metrics. This is the constant-curvature form often called Cartan's theorem.

For a connected complete Riemannian manifold of dimension $n\ge 2$ and constant sectional curvature $k>0$, its complete simply connected universal cover is the round sphere of radius $k^{-1/2}$. This is the constant-curvature case of Cartan-Ambrose-Hicks theorem. Thus the manifold is a quotient by a finite group of isometries acting freely. In even dimension, the determinant embeds this group in $\{1,-1\}$: every determinant-one orthogonal transformation in odd ambient dimension has eigenvalue one and therefore a fixed point. The only possible nonidentity element is the antipodal involution, giving Real projective space. In odd dimensions, free cyclic scalar actions on complex unit spheres instead produce lens spaces.

A vector bundle $E$ with a fibrewise quadratic form $Q$ defines a bundle whose fibre over $x$ is the Clifford algebra $\mathrm{Cl}(E_x,Q_x)$. When the polar form is a nondegenerate bilinear form, local orthonormal frames identify its fibres with a fixed Clifford algebra, and orthogonal transition maps induce the algebra transition maps. A Clifford module bundle is a bundle of modules over these algebras, rather than the algebra bundle itself. For a Riemannian manifold, use its cotangent bundle and the metric quadratic form, with the sign convention specified.

A Clifford module bundle is a vector bundle over a Riemannian manifold with a fibrewise Clifford multiplication. A compatible connection on a vector bundle satisfies $[{\nabla }_X,c(\alpha )]=c({\nabla }_X\alpha )$ for the Levi-Civita connection on covectors. On a graded Clifford module bundle, Clifford multiplication exchanges the two grading summands. The associated Dirac operator is $D={\sum }_{i}c(e^i){\nabla }_{e_i}$. Its fibres are modules over the fibres of the Clifford algebra bundle.

A differential form is coclosed when its codifferential vanishes. On a closed Riemannian manifold, a form is a harmonic differential form exactly when it is both a closed differential form and coclosed: the identity $⟨\Delta \alpha ,\alpha ⟩=\Vert d\alpha {\Vert }^2+\Vert \delta \alpha {\Vert }^2$ proves the converse as well as necessity.

A local isometry from a nonempty complete Riemannian manifold to a connected Riemannian manifold is a surjective covering map. Lift radial geodesics in a normal ball using completeness; the exponential map at each inverse-image centre maps a tangent ball diffeomorphically onto a sheet. Uniqueness of the geodesic initial-value problem makes these sheets disjoint and exhaustive. Surjectivity follows by lifting piecewise geodesic paths. Conversely a Riemannian covering of a complete target is complete, by lifting complete target geodesics and using the Hopf-Rinow theorem. If the target is disconnected, the first assertion gives a covering only of the union of components met by the map.

A (pseudo-)Riemannian manifold is geodesically complete when every inextendible affinely parametrized geodesic is defined for all real parameter values. In the positive-definite case, the Hopf-Rinow theorem identifies this with metric completeness. Null-only completeness in spacetime is a separate weaker condition.

A (pseudo-)Riemannian manifold is conformally flat if every point has a neighborhood on which the metric is $g={\Omega }^2\eta$ for a flat metric $\eta$ and a positive function $\Omega$. This is a local property and does not imply global flatness.

A conjugate point marks a nonzero endpoint-vanishing Jacobi variation and the loss of positive definiteness of the second variation.

For the energy functional of a Riemannian manifold, this variational condition yields conjugate points along a geodesic.

A convex normal neighbourhood is an open set whose points have unique smoothly varying joining geodesics, with the joining geodesic contained in the set. The corresponding star-shaped restriction of each exponential map is a diffeomorphism onto the neighbourhood. Hence its differential is invertible and no such joining geodesic admits a nonzero Jacobi field vanishing at both endpoints. Every point of a Riemannian manifold has arbitrarily small such neighbourhoods. This is stronger than merely requiring the existence of a minimizing geodesic in the set.

On a positive-dimensional Riemannian manifold, equality means equality of the two covariant derivatives at $p$ for every pair of vector fields. A critical point of $\sigma$ annihilates the conformal correction. Conversely, writing that correction as $A$, the identity $g(A(v,v),v)=g(v,v)d\sigma (v)$ for all tangent vectors forces $d\sigma =0$ if $A=0$. A smooth function on a nonempty compact boundaryless manifold has a critical point, so conformally related connections coincide somewhere. Compact manifolds with boundary need not have one.