Convexity of spheres in a manifold without conjugate points

For a non-compact, complete and simply connected manifoldM without conjugate points, we prove that if the determinant of the second fundamental form of the geodesic spheres inM is a radial function, then the geodesic spheres are convex. We also show that ifM is two or three dimensional and without conjugate points, then, at every point there exists a ray with no focal points on it relative to the initial point of the ray. The proofs use a result from the theory of vector bundles combined with the index lemma.