Spectral sequences and taut Riemannian foliations

Abstract

Using a relation between the terms of the spectral sequence of a Riemannian foliation and its adiabatic limit, we obtain Bochner type techniques for this special setting and, as a consequence, in the special case of a Riemannian flow we obtain vanishing conditions for the top dimensional group of the basic cohomology \(H_{b}^{q}(\mathcal{F})\)-which is related to the property of being geodesible. We also extend a Weitzenböck type formula for the leafwise Laplacian and, for the particular class of compact foliations, we obtain a generalization of a result due to Ph. Tondeur, M. Min-Oo, and E. Ruh concerning the vanishing of the basic cohomology under the assumption that certain curvature operators are positive definite. In the final part we present an example.