We consider manifolds endowed with metric contact pairs for which the two characteristic foliations are orthogonal. We give some properties of the curvature tensor and in particular a formula for the Ricci curvature in the direction of the sum of the
two Reeb vector fields. This shows that metrics associated to normal contact pairs cannot be flat. Therefore flat non-Kahler Vaisman manifolds do not exist. Furthermore we give a local classification of metric contact pair manifolds whose curvature vanishes on the vertical subbundle. As a corollary we have that flat associated metrics can only exist if the leaves of the characteristic foliations are at most three-dimensional.
We consider manifolds endowed with a contact pair structure. To such a structure are naturally associated two almost complex structures. If they are both integrable, we call the structure a normal contact pair. We generalize the Morimotos Theorem on
product of almost contact manifolds to flat bundles. We construct some examples on Boothby--Wang fibrations over contact-symplectic manifolds. In particular, these results give new methods to construct complex manifolds.
We introduce the notion of contact pair structure and the corresponding associated metrics, in the same spirit of the geometry of almost contact structures. We prove that, with respect to these metrics, the integral curves of the Reeb vector fields a
re geodesics and that the leaves of the Reeb action are totally geodesic. Mreover, we show that, in the case of a metric contact pair with decomposable endomorphism, the characteristic foliations are orthogonal and their leaves carry induced contact metric structures.
