Compact almost Ricci solitons with constant scalar curvature are gradient

The aim of this note is to prove that any compact non-trivial almost Ricci soliton $\big (M^n,\,g,\,X,\,\lambda \big )$ with constant scalar curvature is isometric to a Euclidean sphere $\mathbb {S}^{n}$ . As a consequence we obtain that every compact non-trivial almost Ricci soliton with constant scalar curvature is gradient. Moreover, the vector field $X$ decomposes as the sum of a Killing vector field $Y$ and the gradient of a suitable function.     

Some pinching theorems for minimal submanifolds in \mathbb{S}^m (1) \times \mathbb{R}

Let Mn be an n-dimensional compact minimal submanifolds in Sm(1)×R.We prove two pinching theorems by the Ricci curvature and the sectional curvature pinching conditions respectively.In fact,we characterize the Clifford tori and Veronese submanifolds by our pinching conditions respectively.     

On the asymptotic behavior of expanding gradient Ricci solitons

Let (M, g, f) be an n-dimensional expanding gradient Ricci soliton with faster-than-quadratic-decay curvature, i.e., ${\lim_{{\rm dist}(O,x)\rightarrow\infty} |{\rm Sect}(x)|\cdot {\rm dist}(O,x)^2=0}$ . When M is simply connected at infinity and n??? 3, we show that its tangent cone at infinity must be a manifold and is isometric to ${\mathbb{R}^n}$ . Here, we also assume that M has only one end for the simplicity of the statement. A crucial step to gain the regularity of the tangent cone at infinity is to prove that the injectivity radius grows linearly. This can be achieved by combining the curvature assumption and a lower bound estimate of volume ratio of all geodesic balls, which is attained as Theorem 3. On the other hand, we also study the asymptotic volume ratio of non-steady gradient Ricci solitons under other weaker conditions.     

On the structure of complete hypersurfaces in a Riemannian manifold of nonnegative curvature and L 2 harmonic forms

Let M ⁿ be a complete oriented noncompact hypersurface in a complete Riemannian manifold N ⁿ⁺¹ of nonnegative sectional curvature with ${2 \leq n \leq 5}$ . We prove that if M satisfies a stability condition, then there are no non-trivial L ² harmonic one-forms on M. This result is a generalization of a well-known fact in the case when M is a stable minimally immersed hypersurface. As a consequence, we show that if the mean curvature of M is constant, then either M must have only one end or M splits into a product of ${\mathbb{R}}$ and a compact manifold with nonnegative sectional curvature. In case ${n \geq 5}$ , we also show that the same result holds if the absolute value of the mean curvature is less than or equal to the ratio of the norm of the second fundamental form to the dimension of a hypersurface.     

The Gauss�CKronecker curvature of minimal hypersurfaces in four-dimensional space forms

Let ${{\mathbb{Q}^4}(c)}$ be a four-dimensional space form of constant curvature c. In this paper we show that the infimum of the absolute value of the Gauss?CKronecker curvature of a complete minimal hypersurface in ${\mathbb{Q}^4(c), c\leq 0}$ , whose Ricci curvature is bounded from below, is equal to zero. Further, we study the connected minimal hypersurfaces M ³ of a space form ${{\mathbb{Q}^4}(c)}$ with constant Gauss?CKronecker curvature K. For the case c ?? 0, we prove, by a local argument, that if K is constant, then K must be equal to zero. We also present a classification of complete minimal hypersurfaces of ${\mathbb{Q}^4(c)}$ with K constant.     

Almost Ricci solitons and K-contact geometry

We give a short Lie-derivative theoretic proof of the following recent result of Barros et al. “A compact non-trivial almost Ricci soliton with constant scalar curvature is gradient, and isometric to a Euclidean sphere”. Next, we obtain the result: a complete almost Ricci soliton whose metric \(g\) is \(K\) -contact and flow vector field \(X\) is contact, becomes a Ricci soliton with constant scalar curvature. In particular, for \(X\) strict, \(g\) becomes compact Sasakian Einstein.     

Some Critical Almost Hermitian Structures

Let M be an even dimensional compact smooth manifold admitting an almost complex structure. Let ${{(\lambda, \mu)} \in \mathbb{R}^2 - (0,0)}$ . We discuss the critical points of the functional ${\mathcal {F}_{\lambda, \mu} (J, g) = \int_M (\lambda \tau + \mu \tau^* ) dv_g}$ on the space of all almost Hermitian structures ${\mathcal{AH}(M)}$ on M and its subspace ${{\mathcal{AH}_{c}(M)}}$ with a certain positive constant c, where τ and τ ^* are the scalar curvature and the *-scalar curvature of (J, g), respectively. Further, we provide some examples illustrating our arguments.     

Invariant submanifolds of Sasakian space forms

In the present study, we consider isometric immersions ${f : M \rightarrow \tilde{M}(c)}$ of (2n + 1)-dimensional invariant submanifold M ²ⁿ⁺¹ of (2m + 1) dimensional Sasakian space form ${\tilde{M}^{2m+1}}$ of constant ${ \varphi}$ -sectional curvature c. We have shown that if f satisfies the curvature condition ${\overset{\_}{R}(X, Y) \cdot \sigma =Q(g, \sigma)}$ then either M ²ⁿ⁺¹ is totally geodesic, or ${||\sigma||^{2}=\frac{1}{3}(2c+n(c+1)),}$ or ${||\sigma||^{2}(x) > \frac{1}{3}(2c+n(c+1)}$ at some point x of M ²ⁿ⁺¹. We also prove that ${\overset{\_ }{R}(X, Y)\cdot \sigma = \frac{1}{2n}Q(S, \sigma)}$ then either M ²ⁿ⁺¹ is totally geodesic, or ${||\sigma||^{2}=-\frac{2}{3}(\frac{1}{2n}\tau -\frac{1}{2}(n+2)(c+3)+3)}$ , or ${||\sigma||^{2}(x) > -\frac{2}{3}(\frac{1}{2n} \tau (x)-\frac{1}{2} (n+2)(c+3)+3)}$ at some point x of M ²ⁿ⁺¹.     

A Sharp Comparison Theorem for Compact Manifolds with Mean Convex Boundary

Let M be a compact n-dimensional Riemannian manifold with nonnegative Ricci curvature and mean convex boundary ?M. Assume that the mean curvature H of the boundary ?M satisfies H≥(n?1)k>0 for some positive constant k. In this paper, we prove that the distance function d to the boundary ?M is bounded from above by \(\frac{1}{k}\) and the upper bound is achieved if and only if M is isometric to an n-dimensional Euclidean ball of radius \(\frac{1}{k}\) .     

Complete gradient shrinking Ricci solitons with pinched curvature

We prove that any n-dimensional complete gradient shrinking Ricci soliton with pinched Weyl curvature is a finite quotient of ${\mathbb{R}^{n}, \mathbb{R}\times \mathbb{S}^{n-1}}$ or ${\mathbb{S}^{n}}$ . In particular, we do not need to assume the metric to be locally conformally flat.     

The classification of (m, \rho)-quasi-Einstein manifolds

If there exist a smooth function f on $(M^n, g)$ and three real constants $m,\rho ,\lambda $ ( $0<m\le \infty $ ) such that $$\begin{aligned} R_{ij}+f_{ij}-\frac{1}{m}f_if_j=(\rho R+\lambda ) g_{ij}, \end{aligned}$$ we call $(M^n,g)$ a $(m,\rho )$ -quasi-Einstein manifold. Here $R_{ij}$ is the Ricci curvature and R is the scalar curvature of the metric g, respectively. This is a special case of the so-called generalized quasi-Einstein manifold which was a natural generalization of gradient Ricci solitons associated with the Hamilton’s Ricci flow. In this paper, we first obtain some rigidity results for compact $(m,\rho )$ -quasi-Einstein manifolds. Then, we give some classifications under the assumption that the Bach tensor of $(M^n,g)$ is flat.     

Differentiable sphere theorems for submanifolds of positive k-th ricci curvature

We investigate the differentiable pinching problem for compact immersed submanifolds of positive k-th Ricci curvature, and prove that if M ⁿ is simply connected and the k-th Ricci curvature of M ⁿ is bounded below by a quantity involving the mean curvature of M ⁿ and the curvature of the ambient manifold, then M ⁿ is diffeomorphic to the standard sphere ${\mathbb{S}^n}$ . For the case where the ambient manifold is a space form with nonnegative constant curvature, we prove a differentiable sphere theorem without the assumption that the submanifold M ⁿ is simply connected. Motivated by a geometric rigidity theorem due to S. T. Yau and U. Simon, we prove a topological rigidity theorem for submanifolds in a space form.     

Gradient shrinking Ricci solitons of half harmonic Weyl curvature

Gradient Ricci solitons and metrics with half harmonic Weyl curvature are two natural generalizations of Einstein metrics on four-manifolds. In this paper we prove that if a metric has structures of both gradient shrinking Ricci soliton and half harmonic Weyl curvature, then except for three examples, it has to be an Einstein metric with positive scalar curvature. Precisely, we prove that a four-dimensional gradient shrinking Ricci soliton with \(\delta W^{\pm }=0\) is either Einstein, or a finite quotient of \(S^3\times \mathbb {R}\), \(S^2\times \mathbb {R}^2\) or \(\mathbb {R}^4\). We also prove that a four-dimensional gradient Ricci soliton with constant scalar curvature is either Kähler–Einstein, or a finite quotient of \(M\times \mathbb {C}\), where M is a Riemann surface. The method of our proof is to construct a weighted subharmonic function using curvature decompositions and the Weitzenböck formula for half Weyl curvature, and the method was motivated by previous work (Gursky and LeBrun in Ann Glob Anal Geom 17:315–328, 1999; Wu in Einstein four-manifolds of three-nonnegative curvature operator 2013; Trans Am Math Soc 369:1079–1096, 2017; Yang in Invent Math 142:435–450, 2000) on the rigidity of Einstein four-manifolds with positive sectional curvature, and previous work (Cao and Chen in Trans Am Math Soc 364:2377–2391, 2012; Duke Math J 162:1003–1204, 2013; Catino in Math Ann 35:629–635, 2013) on the rigidity of gradient Ricci solitons.     

L 2-Harmonic 1-Forms on Submanifolds with Finite Total Curvature

Let $x:M^{m}\to\bar{M}$ , m≥3, be an isometric immersion of a complete noncompact manifold M in a complete simply connected manifold $\bar{M}$ with sectional curvature satisfying $-k^{2}\leq K_{\bar{M}}\leq0$ , for some constant k. Assume that the immersion has finite total curvature in the sense that the traceless second fundamental form has finite L ^m -norm. If $K_{\bar{M}}\not\equiv0$ , assume further that the first eigenvalue of the Laplacian of M is bounded from below by a suitable constant. We prove that the space of the L ² harmonic 1-forms on M has finite dimension. Moreover, there exists a constant Λ>0, explicitly computed, such that if the total curvature is bounded from above by Λ then there are no nontrivial L ²-harmonic 1-forms on M.     

Gradient estimates and differential Harnack inequalities for a nonlinear parabolic equation on Riemannian manifolds

Let (M ⁿ , g) be an n-dimensional complete Riemannian manifold. We consider gradient estimates for the positive solutions to the following nonlinear parabolic equation: $$u_t=\Delta u+au\log u+bu$$ on M ⁿ  × [0,T], where a, b are two real constants. We derive local gradient estimates of the Li-Yau type for positive solutions of the above equations on Riemannian manifolds with Ricci curvature bounded from below. As applications, several parabolic Harnack inequalities are obtained. In particular, our results extend the ones of Davies in Heat Kernels and Spectral Theory, Cambridge Tracts in Mathematics, vol 92, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,1989, and Li and Xu in Adv Math 226:4456–4491 (2011).     

Upper Bounds on the First Eigenvalue for a Diffusion Operator via Bakry–Émery Ricci Curvature II

Let ${L=\Delta-\nabla\varphi\cdot\nabla}$ be a symmetric diffusion operator with an invariant measure ${d\mu=e^{-\varphi}dx}$ on a complete Riemannian manifold. In this paper we prove Li–Yau gradient estimates for weighted elliptic equations on the complete manifold with ${|\nabla \varphi| \leq \theta}$ and ∞-dimensional Bakry–Émery Ricci curvature bounded below by some negative constant. Based on this, we give an upper bound on the first eigenvalue of the diffusion operator L on this kind manifold, and thereby generalize a Cheng’s result on the Laplacian case (Math Z, 143:289–297, 1975).     

Rigidity of manifolds with Bakry–émery Ricci curvature bounded below

Let M be a complete Riemannian manifold with Riemannian volume vol _g and f be a smooth function on M. A sharp upper bound estimate on the first eigenvalue of symmetric diffusion operator ${\Delta_f = \Delta- \nabla f \cdot \nabla}$ was given by Wu (J Math Anal Appl 361:10?C18, 2010) and Wang (Ann Glob Anal Geom 37:393?C402, 2010) under a condition that finite dimensional Bakry?Cémery Ricci curvature is bounded below, independently. They propounded an open problem is whether there is some rigidity on the estimate. In this note, we will solve this problem to obtain a splitting type theorem, which generalizes Li?CWang??s result in Wang (J Differ Geom 58:501?C534, 2001, J Differ Geom 62:143?C162, 2002). For the case that infinite dimensional Bakry?CEmery Ricci curvature of M is bounded below, we do not expect any upper bound estimate on the first eigenvalue of ?? _f without any additional assumption (see the example in Sect. 2). In this case, we will give a sharp upper bound estimate on the first eigenvalue of ?? _f under the additional assuption that ${|\nabla f|}$ is bounded. We also obtain the rigidity result on this estimate, as another Li?CWang type splitting theorem.     

Biharmonic Submanifolds with Parallel Mean Curvature in \mathbb{S}^{n}\times\mathbb{R}

We find a Simons type formula for submanifolds with parallel mean curvature vector (pmc submanifolds) in product spaces M ⁿ (c)×?, where M ⁿ (c) is a space form with constant sectional curvature c, and then we use it to prove a gap theorem for the mean curvature of certain complete proper-biharmonic pmc submanifolds, and classify proper-biharmonic pmc surfaces in $\mathbb{S}^{n}(c)\times\mathbb{R}$ .     

The Ricci tensor and structure Jacobi operator of real hypersurfaces in a complex projective space

Let M be a real hypersurface with almost contact metric structure ${(\phi, \xi, \eta, g)}$ in a complex projective space ${P_{n}\mathbb{C}}$ . A Real hypersurface M is said to be a Hopf hypersurface if ξ is principal. In this paper we investigate real hypersurfaces of ${P_{n}\mathbb{C}}$ whose Ricci tensors S satisfy ${\nabla_{\phi\nabla_{\xi}\xi}S = 0}$ . Under some further conditions we characterize Hopf hypersurfaces of ${P_{n}\mathbb{C}}$ .     

A Bernstein Property of a Class of Fourth Order Complex Partial Differential Equations

Let ${f:\Omega \rightarrow \mathbb{R}}$ be a smooth function on a domain   ${\Omega \subset \mathbb{C}^n}$ with its Hessian matrix ${\left( \frac{\partial^2 f}{\partial z^i \partial\bar{z}^j}\right)}$ positive Hermitian. In this paper, we investigate a class of partial differential equations $$\Delta \ln \det (f_{i\bar{j}}) = \beta \;\| \text{grad} \ln \det (f_{i\bar{j}}) \|^2, $$ where Δ and ${\| \cdot \|}$ are the Laplacian and tensor norm, respectively, with respect to the metric ${G = \sum f_{i\bar{j}} \,dz^i \otimes d\bar{z}^j}$ , and β > 1 is some real constant depending on the dimension n. We prove that the above PDEs have a Bernstein property when the metric G is complete, provided that ${\det (f_{i\bar{j}})}$ and the Ricci curvature are bounded.