Moebius geometry of submanifolds in ? n

In this paper we define a Moebius invariant metric and a Moebius invariant second fundamental form for submanifolds in ? ⁿ and show that in case of a hypersurface with n≥ 4 they determine the hypersurface up to Moebius transformations. Using these Moebius invariants we calculate the first variation of the moebius volume functional. We show that any minimal surface in ? ⁿ is also Moebius minimal and that the image in ? ⁿ of any minimal surface in ℝ ⁿ unter the inverse of a stereographic projection is also Moebius minimal. Finally we use the relations between Moebius invariants to classify all surfaces in ?³ with vanishing Moebius form. Received: 18 November 1997