SOME RESULTS ON CONCIRCULAR VECTOR FIELDS AND THEIR APPLICATIONS TO RICCI SOLITONS

A vector field on a Riemannian manifold (M, g) is called concircular if it satisfies ${\nabla}X^v={\mu}X$ for any vector X tangent to M, where ${\nabla}$ is the Levi-Civita connection and ${\mu}$ is a non-trivial function on M. A smooth vector field ${\xi}$ on a Riemannian manifold (M, g) is said to define a Ricci soliton if it satisfies the following Ricci soliton equation: $$\frac{1}{2}L_{\xi}g+Ric={\lambda}g$$, where $L_{\xi}g$ is the Lie-derivative of the metric tensor g with respect to ${\xi}$, Ric is the Ricci tensor of (M, g) and ${\lambda}$ is a constant. A Ricci soliton (M, g, ${\xi}$, ${\lambda}$) on a Riemannian manifold (M, g) is said to have concircular potential field if its potential field is a concircular vector field. In the first part of this paper we determine Riemannian manifolds which admit a concircular vector field. In the second part we classify Ricci solitons with concircular potential field. In the last part we prove some important properties of Ricci solitons on submanifolds of a Riemannian manifold equipped with a concircular vector field.