Minimal orbits of metrics

Abstract

The group of diffeomorphisms of a compact manifold acts isometrically on the space of Riemannian metrics with its L 2 metric. Following Arnaudon and Paycha (1995) and Maeda, Rosenberg and Tondeur (1993), we define minimal orbits for this action by a zeta function regularization. We show that odd dimensional isotropy irreducible homogeneous spaces give rise to minimal orbits, the first known examples of minimal submanifolds of infinite dimension and codimension. We also find a flat 2-torus giving a stable minimal orbit. We prove that isolated orbits are minimal, as in finite dimensions.