A new Lichnerowicz–Obata estimate in the presence of a parallel p-form

 Let (M ⁿ ,g) be a compact Riemannian manifold with a smooth boundary. In this paper, we give a Lichnerowicz-Obata type lower bound for the first eigenvalue of the Laplacian of (M ⁿ ,g) when M has a parallel p-form (2 ≤p≤n/2). This result follows from a new Bochner-Reilly's formula. Moreover, we give a characterization of the equality case when (M ⁿ ,g) is simply connected. Received: 1 June 2001