Conditional extremals in complete Riemannian manifolds

Conditional extremal curves in a complete Riemannian manifold M are defined as the critical points of the squared L² distance between the tangent vector field of a curve and a so-called prior vector field. We prove that this L² distance satisfies the Palais-Smale condition on the space of absolutely continuous curves joining two submanifolds of M, and thus establish the existence of critical points. We also prove a Morse index theorem in the case where the two submanifolds are single points, and use the Morse inequalities to place lower bounds on the number of critical points of each index.     

The Kernel Theorem of Hilbert-Schmidt operators

All Hilbert-Schmidt operators acting on L²-sections of a vector bundle with fiber a separable Hilbert space H over a compact Riemannian manifold M, are characterized. This is achieved by defining the vector bundle of Hilbert-Schmidt operators on H, and then making use of a classical result known as the Kernel Theorem of Hilbert-Schmidt operators.     

Stable minimal hypersurfaces in a Riemannian manifold with pinched negative sectional curvature

We give an estimate of the smallest spectral value of the Laplace operator on a complete noncompact stable minimal hypersurface M in a complete simply connected Riemannian manifold with pinched negative sectional curvature. In the same ambient space, we prove that if a complete minimal hypersurface M has sufficiently small total scalar curvature then M has only one end. We also obtain a vanishing theorem for L ² harmonic 1-forms on minimal hypersurfaces in a Riemannian manifold with sectional curvature bounded below by a negative constant. Moreover, we provide sufficient conditions for a minimal hypersurface in a Riemannian manifold with nonpositive sectional curvature to be stable.     

Clifford systems,Cartan hypersurfaces and Riemannian submersions

Cartan hypersurfaces are minimal isoparametric hypersurfaces with 3 distinct constant principal curvatures in unit spheres. In this article, we firstly build a relationship between the focal submanifolds of Cartan hypersurfaces and the Hopf fiberations and give a new proof of the classification result on Cartan hypersurfaces. Nextly, we show that there exists a Riemannian submersion with totally geodesic fibers from each Cartan hypersurface M^3m to the projective planes \({{\mathbb{F}}P^2}\) (\({{\mathbb{F}}={\mathbb{R}},{\mathbb{C}},{\mathbb{H}},{\mathbb{O}}}\) for m = 1, 2, 4, 8, respectively) endowed with the canonical metrics. As an application, we give several interesting examples of Riemannian submersions satisfying a basic equality due to Chen (Proc Jpn Acad Ser A Math Sci 81:162–167, 2005).     

On submanifolds whose tubular hypersurfaces have constant higher order mean curvatures

Motivated by the theory of isoparametric hypersurfaces,we study submanifolds whose tubular hypersurfaces have some constant higher order mean curvatures.Here a k-th order mean curvature Q_k~v(k ≥ 1) of a submanifold M~n-is defined as the k-th power sum of the principal curvatures,or equivalently,of the shape operator with respect to the unit normal vector v.We show that if all nearby tubular hypersurfaces of M have some constant higher order mean curvatures,then the submanifold M itself has some constant higher order mean curvatures Q_k~v independent of the choice of v.Many identities involving higher order mean curvatures and Jacobi operators on such submanifolds are also obtained.In particular,we generalize several classical results in isoparametric theory given by E.Cartan,K.Nomizu,H.F.Miinzner,Q.M.Wang,et al.As an application,we finally get a geometrical filtration for the focal submanifolds of isoparametric functions on a complete Riemannian manifold.     

Riemannian manifolds carrying a pair of skew symmetric conformal vector fields

We deal with a Riemannian manifoldM carrying a pair of skew symmetric conformal vector fields (X, Y). The existence of such a pairing is determined by an exterior differential system in involution (in the sense of Cartan). In this case,M is foliated by 3-dimensional totally geodesic submanifolds. Additional geometric properties are proved.     

Stochastic properties of the Laplacian on Riemannian submersions

Based on ideas of Pigolla and Setti (2010), we prove that isometrically immersed submanifolds with bounded mean curvature into Cartan–Hadamard manifolds are Feller. We consider Riemannian submersions π : M → N with compact minimal fibers and prove that the total space M is Feller, parabolic or stochastically complete if, and only if, the base manifold N is, respectively, Feller, parabolic or stochastically complete.     

On the geometry of spaces of oriented geodesics

Let M be either a simply connected pseudo-Riemannian space of constant curvature or a rank one Riemannian symmetric space, and consider the space L(M) of oriented geodesics of M. The space L(M) is a smooth homogeneous manifold and in this paper we describe all invariant symplectic structures, (para)complex structures, pseudo-Riemannian metrics and (para)Kähler structure on L(M).     

Einstein-Weyl structures on lightlike hypersurfaces

We study Weyl structures on lightlike hypersurfaces endowed with a conformal structure of certain type and specific screen distribution: the Weyl screen structures. We investigate various differential geometric properties of Einstein-Weyl screen structures on lightlike hypersurfaces and show that, for ambient Lorentzian space ? ₁ ⁿ⁺² and a totally umbilical screen foliation, there is a strong interplay with the induced (Riemannian) Weyl-structure on the leaves.     

Near-Equality of the Penrose Inequality for Rotationally Symmetric Riemannian Manifolds

This article is the sequel to Lee and Sormani (Stability of the Positive Mass Theorem for Rotationally Symmetric Riemannian Manifolds, 2011. Preprint), which dealt with the near-equality case of the Positive Mass Theorem. We study the near-equality case of the Penrose Inequality for the class of complete asymptotically flat rotationally symmetric Riemannian manifolds with nonnegative scalar curvature whose boundaries are outermost minimal hypersurfaces. Specifically, we prove that if the Penrose Inequality is sufficiently close to being an equality on one of these manifolds, then it must be close to a Schwarzschild space with an appended cylinder, in the sense of Lipschitz distance. Since the Lipschitz distance bounds the intrinsic flat distance on compact sets, we also obtain a result for intrinsic flat distance, which is a more appropriate distance for more general near-equality results, as discussed in Lee and Sormani (Stability of the Positive Mass Theorem for Rotationally Symmetric Riemannian Manifolds, 2011. Preprint).     

Integrable Riemannian Submersion with Singularities

A map of a Riemannian manifold into an euclidian space is said to be transnormal if its restrictions to neighbourhoods of regular level sets are integrable Riemannian submersions. Analytic transnormal maps can be used to describe isoparametric submanifolds in spaces of constant curvature and equifocal submanifolds with flat sections in simply connected symmetric spaces. These submanifolds are also regular leaves of singular Riemannian foliations with sections. We prove that regular level sets of an analytic transnormal map on a real analytic complete Riemannian manifold are equifocal submanifolds and leaves of a singular Riemannian foliation with sections.     

The higher rank rigidity theorem for manifolds with no focal points

We say that a Riemannian manifold M has rank M ≥ k if every geodesic in M admits at least k parallel Jacobi fields. The Rank Rigidity Theorem of Ballmann and Burns–Spatzier, later generalized by Eberlein–Heber, states that a complete, irreducible, simply connected Riemannian manifold M of rank k ≥ 2 (the “higher rank” assumption) whose isometry group Γ satisfies the condition that the Γ-recurrent vectors are dense in SM is a symmetric space of noncompact type. This includes, for example, higher rank M which admit a finite volume quotient. We adapt the method of Ballmann and Eberlein–Heber to prove a generalization of this theorem where the manifold M is assumed only to have no focal points. We then use this theorem to generalize to no focal points a result of Ballmann–Eberlein stating that for compact manifolds of nonpositive curvature, rank is an invariant of the fundamental group.     

The Oshima-Sekiguchi and Liouville theorems on Heintze groups

Let L be an elliptic operator on a Riemannian manifold M. A function F annihilated by L is said to be L-harmonic. F is said to have moderate growth if and only if F grows at most exponentially in the Riemannian distance. If M is a rank-one symmetric space and L is the Laplace-Beltrami operator for M, the Oshima-Sekiguchi theorem [T. Oshima, J. Sekiguchi, Eigenspaces of invariant differential operators on an affine symmetric space, Invent. Math. 57 (1980) 1-81] states that a L-harmonic function F has moderate growth if and only if F is the Poisson integral of a distribution on the Furstenberg boundary. In this work we prove that this result generalizes to a very large class of homogeneous Riemannian manifolds of negative curvature. We also (i) prove a Liouville type theorem that characterizes the “polynomial-like” harmonic functions which vanish on the boundary in terms of their growth properties, (ii) describe all “polynomial-like” harmonic functions, and (iii) give asymptotic expansions for the Poisson kernel. One consequence of this work is that every Schwartz distribution on the boundary is the boundary value for a L-harmonic function F which is uniquely determined modulo “polynomial-like” harmonic functions.     

Another Rigidity Theorem for Affine Immersions

The theorem of Beez-Killing in Euclidean differential geometry states as follows [KN, p.46]. Let f: M ⁿ → Rⁿ⁺¹ be an isometric immersion of an n-dimensional Riemannian manifold into a Euclidean (n + l)-space. If the rank of the second fundamental form of f is greater than 2 at every point, then any isometric immersion of M ⁿ into R ^{n +} 1 is congruent to f. A generalization of this classical theorem to affine differential geometry has been given in [O] (see Theorem 1.5). We shall give in this paper another version of rigidity theorem for affine immersions.     

Extrinsic radius pinching for hypersurfaces of space forms

We prove some pinching results for the extrinsic radius of compact hypersurfaces in space forms. In the hyperbolic space, we show that if the volume of M is 1, then there exists a constant C depending on the dimension of M and the L^∞-norm of the second fundamental form B such that the pinching condition (where H is the mean curvature) implies that M is diffeomorphic to an n-dimensional sphere. We prove the corresponding result for hypersurfaces of the Euclidean space and the sphere with the Lp-norm of H, p?2, instead of the L^∞-norm.     

Classifications of Isoparametric Hypersurfaces in Randers Space Forms

In this paper, we give the complete classifications of isoparametric hypersurfaces in Randers space forms. By studying the principal curvatures of anisotropic submanifolds in a Randers space (N, F) with the navigation data (h, W), we find that a Randers space form (N, F, dμ_BH) and the corresponding Riemannian space (N, h) have the same isoparametric hypersurfaces, but in general, their isoparametric functions are different. We give a necessary and sufficient condition for an isoparametric function of (N, h) to be isoparametric on (N, F, dμ_BH), from which we get some examples of isoparametric functions.     

Extrinsic homogeneity of parallel submanifolds

We consider parallel submanifolds M of a Riemannian symmetric space N and study the question whether M is extrinsically homogeneous in N, i.e. whether there exists a subgroup of the isometry group of N which acts transitively on M. Provided that N is of compact or non-compact type, we establish the extrinsic homogeneity of every complete irreducible parallel submanifold of N whose dimension is at least three and which is not contained in any flat of N.     

Classification of Casorati ideal Lagrangian submanifolds in complex space forms

In this paper, using optimization methods on Riemannian submanifolds, we establish two improved inequalities for generalized normalized δ-Casorati curvatures of Lagrangian submanifolds in complex space forms. We provide examples showing that these inequalities are the best possible and classify all Casorati ideal Lagrangian submanifolds (in the sense of B.-Y. Chen) in a complex space form. In particular, we generalize the recent results obtained in G.E. Vîlcu (2018) [34].     

Transnormal functions on a Riemannian manifold

We extend theorems of É. Cartan, Nomizu, Münzner, Q.M. Wang, and Ge–Tang on isoparametric functions to transnormal functions on a general Riemannian manifold. We show that if a complete Riemannian manifold M admits a transnormal function, then M is diffeomorphic to either a vector bundle over a submanifold, or a union of two disk bundles over two submanifolds. Moreover, a singular level set Q is austere and minimal, if exists, and generic level sets are tubes over Q. We give a criterion for a transnormal function to be an isoparametric function.