A Note on Incompressible Vector Fields

Abstract

In this paper, we use incompressible vector fields for characterizing Killing vector fields. We show that on a compact Riemannian manifold, a nontrivial incompressible vector field has a certain lower bound on the integral of the Ricci curvature in the direction of the incompressible vector field if, and only if, the vector field ξ is Killing. We also show that a nontrivial incompressible vector field ξ on a compact Riemannian manifold is a Jacobi-type vector field if, and only if, ξ is Killing. Finally, we show that a nontrivial incompressible vector field ξ on a connected Riemannian manifold has a certain lower bound on the Ricci curvature in the direction of ξ, and if ξ is also a geodesic vector field, it necessarily implies that ξ is Killing.

Keywords

• incompressible vector fields
• killing vector fields
• Ricci curvature
• Euclidean space