Curvature dependent lower bounds for the first eigenvalue of the Dirac operator

Using Weitzenböck techniques on any compact Riemannian spin manifold we derive inequalities that involve a real parameter and join the eigenvalues of the Dirac operator with curvature terms. The discussion of these inequalities yields vanishing theorems for the kernel of the Dirac operator D and lower bounds for the spectrum of D² if the curvature satisfies certain conditions.