Normal Bundles of Surfaces in Riemannian Manifolds

Let f : S -> M (n) be an immersed surface in a Riemannian manifold M. Let NS be the normal bundle of S in M and TM be the tangent bundle of M. Let F : (NS, g (a,b) ) -> (TM, G (a,b) ) be the natural isometric immersion induced by f with g (a,b) = F (*) G (a,b) , where G (a,b) is the Cheeger-Gromoll type metric on TM. In this paper, we study the extrinsic geometric properties of NS in (TM, G (a,b) ) in terms of properties of the immersion f. In particular, the conditions of minimality and constant mean curvature are studied.