Sphere-like isoparametric hypersurfaces in Damek-Ricci spaces

Abstract: Locally harmonic manifolds are Riemannian manifolds in which small geodesic spheres are isoparametric hypersurfaces, i.e., hypersurfaces whose nearby parallel hypersurfaces are of constant mean curvature. Flat and rank one symmetric spaces are examples of harmonic manifolds. Damek-Ricci spaces are non-compact harmonic manifolds, most of which are non-symmetric. Taking the limit of an "inflating" sphere through a point $p$ in a Damek-Ricci space as the center of the sphere runs out to infinity along a geodesic half-line $\gamma$ starting from $p$, we get a horosphere. Similarly to spheres, horospheres are also isoparametric hypersurfaces. In this paper, we define the sphere-like hypersurfaces obtained by "overinflating the horospheres" by pushing the center of the sphere beyond the point at infinity of $\gamma$ along a virtual prolongation of $\gamma$. They give a new family of isoparametric hypersurfaces in Damek-Ricci spaces connecting geodesic spheres to some of the isoparametric hypersurfaces constructed by J. C. D\'iaz-Ramos and M. Dom\'inguez-V\'azquez [arXiv:1111.0264] in Damek-Ricci spaces. We study the geometric properties of these isoparametric hypersurfaces, in particular their homogeneity and the totally geodesic condition for their focal varieties.