We introduce polar metrics on a product manifold, which have product and warped product metrics as special cases. We prove a de Rham-type theorem characterizing Riemannian manifolds that can be locally or globally decomposed as a product manifold endowed with a polar metric. For such a product manifold, our main result gives a complete description of all its isometric immersions into a space form whose second fundamental forms are adapted to its product structure in the sense that the tangent spaces to each factor are preserved by all shape operators. This is a far-reaching generalization of a basic decomposition theorem for isometric immersions of Riemannian products due to Moore as well as of its extension by Nölker to isometric immersions of warped products.

It is known that the minimal 3-spheres of CR type with constant sectional curvature have been classified explicitly, and also that the weakly Lagrangian case has been studied. In this paper, we provide some examples of minimal 3-spheres with constant curvature in the complex projective space, which are neither of CR type nor weakly Lagrangian, and give the adapted frame of a minimal 3-sphere of CR type with constant sectional curvature.

In this paper we determine the metric dimension of $n$-dimensional metric $(X,G)$-manifolds. This category includes all Euclidean, hyperbolic and spherical manifolds as special cases.

In this paper, we first deduce a formula of S-curvature of homogeneous Finsler spaces in terms of Killing vector fields. Then we prove that a homogeneous Finsler space has isotropic S-curvature if and only if it has vanishing S-curvature. In the special case that the homogeneous Finsler space is a Randers space, we give an explicit formula which coincides with the previous formula obtained by the second author using other methods.

The following Chen's bi-harmonic conjecture made in 1991 is well-known and stays open: The only bi-harmonic submanifolds of Euclidean spaces are the minimal ones. In this paper, we prove that the bi-harmonic conjecture is true for bi-harmonic hypersurfaces with three distinct principal curvatures of a Euclidean space of arbitrary dimension.

We consider quasi-Einstein metrics in the framework of contact metric manifolds and prove some rigidity results. First, we show that any quasi-Einstein Sasakian metric is Einstein. Next, we prove that any complete K-contact manifold with quasi-Einstein metric is compact Einstein and Sasakian. To this end, we extend these results for (κ, μ)-spaces.

Given the pair (P, η) of (0,2) tensors, where η defines a volume element, we consider a new variational problem varying η only. We then have Einstein metrics and slant immersions as critical points of the 1st variation. We may characterize Ricci flat metrics and Lagrangian submanifolds as stable critical points of our variational problem.

We apply appropriate maximum principles in order to obtain characterization results concerning complete linear Weingarten hypersurfaces with bounded mean curvature in the hyperbolic space. By supposing a suitable restriction on the norm of the traceless part of the second fundamental form, we show that such a hypersurface must be either totally umbilical or isometric to a hyperbolic cylinder, when its scalar curvature is positive, or to a spherical cylinder, when its scalar curvature is negative. Related to the compact case, we also establish a rigidity result.

In this paper we give explicit formulas for differential characteristic classes of principal $G$-bundles with connections and prove their expected properties. In particular, we obtain explicit formulas for differential Chern classes, differential Pontryagin classes and the differential Euler class. Furthermore, we show that the differential Chern class is the unique natural transformation from (Simons–Sullivan) differential $K$-theory to (Cheeger–Simons) differential characters that is compatible with curvature and characteristic class. We also give the explicit formula for the differential Chern class on Freed–Lott differential $K$-theory. Finally, we discuss the odd differential Chern classes.

In this paper we consider the stationary Poisson Boolean model with spherical grains and propose a family of nonparametric estimators for the radius distribution. These estimators are based on observed distances and radii, weighted in an appropriate way. They are ratio unbiased and asymptotically consistent for a growing observation window. We show that the asymptotic variance exists and is given by a fairly explicit integral expression. Asymptotic normality is established under a suitable integrability assumption on the weight function. We also provide a short discussion of related estimators as well as a simulation study.

The random triangles discussed in this paper are defined by having the directions of their sides independent and uniformly distributed on (0, π). To fix the scale, one side chosen arbitrarily is assigned unit length; let a and b denote the lengths of the other sides. We find the density functions of a / b, max{a, b}, min{a, b}, and of the area of the triangle, the first three explicitly and the last as an elliptic integral. The first two density functions, with supports in (0, ∞) and (½, ∞), respectively, are unusual in having an infinite spike at 1 which is interior to their ranges (the triangle is then isosceles).

We study the absolute continuity of the convolution ${\it\delta}_{e^{X}}^{\natural }\star {\it\delta}_{e^{Y}}^{\natural }$ of two orbital measures on the symmetric spaces $\mathbf{SO}_{0}(p,p)/\mathbf{SO}(p)\times \mathbf{SO}(p)$, $\mathbf{SU}(p,p)/\mathbf{S}(\mathbf{U}(p)\times \mathbf{U}(p))$ and $\mathbf{Sp}(p,p)/\mathbf{Sp}(p)\times \mathbf{Sp}(p)$. We prove sharp conditions on $X$, $Y\in \mathfrak{a}$ for the existence of the density of the convolution measure. This measure intervenes in the product formula for the spherical functions.

In this paper we obtain a sharp height estimate concerning compact hypersurfaces immersed into warped product spaces with some constant higher-order mean curvature and whose boundary is contained in a slice. We apply these results to draw topological conclusions at the end of the paper.

We prove a blow-up formula for Morse–Novikov cohomology on a compact locally conformal Kähler manifold.

In this short note, we prove that an almost umbilical compact hypersurface of a real space form with almost Codazzi umbilicity tensor is embedded, diffeomorphic and quasi-isometric to a round sphere. Then, we derive a new characterisation of geodesic spheres in space forms.

We use the exterior and composition products of doubleforms together with the alternating operator to reformulate Pontrjagin classes and all Pontrjagin numbers in terms of the Riemannian curvature. We show that the alternating operator is obtained by a succession of applications of the first Bianchi sum and we prove some useful identities relating the previous four operations on double forms. As an application, we prove that for a $\def \xmlpi #1{}\def \mathsfbi #1{\boldsymbol {\mathsf {#1}}}\let \le =\leqslant \let \leq =\leqslant \let \ge =\geqslant \let \geq =\geqslant \def \Pr {\mathit {Pr}}\def \Fr {\mathit {Fr}}\def \Rey {\mathit {Re}}k$-conformally flat manifold of dimension $n\geq 4k$, the Pontrjagin classes $P_i$ vanish for any $i\geq k$. Finally, we study the equality case in an inequality of Thorpe between the Euler–Poincaré characteristic and the $k{\rm th}$ Pontrjagin number of a $4k$-dimensional Thorpe manifold.

In this paper we prove two inequalities relating the warping function to various curvature terms, for warped products isometrically immersed in Riemannian manifolds. This extends work by B. Y. Chen [‘On isometric minimal immersions from warped products into real space forms’, Proc. Edinb. Math. Soc. (2) 45(3) (2002), 579–587 and ‘Warped products in real space forms’, Rocky Mountain J. Math.34(2) (2004), 551–563] for the case of immersions into space forms. Finally, we give an application where the target manifold is the Clifford torus.

A trisymplectic structure on a complex $2n$-manifold is a three-dimensional space ${\rm\Omega}$ of closed holomorphic forms such that any element of ${\rm\Omega}$ has constant rank $2n$, $n$ or zero, and degenerate forms in ${\rm\Omega}$ belong to a non-degenerate quadric hypersurface. We show that a trisymplectic manifold is equipped with a holomorphic 3-web and the Chern connection of this 3-web is holomorphic, torsion-free, and preserves the three symplectic forms. We construct a trisymplectic structure on the moduli of regular rational curves in the twistor space of a hyperkähler manifold, and define a trisymplectic reduction of a trisymplectic manifold, which is a complexified form of a hyperkähler reduction. We prove that the trisymplectic reduction in the space of regular rational curves on the twistor space of a hyperkähler manifold $M$ is compatible with the hyperkähler reduction on $M$. As an application of these geometric ideas, we consider the ADHM construction of instantons and show that the moduli space of rank $r$, charge $c$ framed instanton bundles on $\mathbb{C}\mathbb{P}^{3}$ is a smooth trisymplectic manifold of complex dimension $4rc$. In particular, it follows that the moduli space of rank two, charge $c$ instanton bundles on $\mathbb{C}\mathbb{P}^{3}$ is a smooth complex manifold dimension $8c-3$, thus settling part of a 30-year-old conjecture.

The goal of this paper is the study of homogeneous Riemannian structure tensors within the framework of reduction under a group H of isometries. In a first result, H is a normal subgroup of the group of symmetries associated with the reducing tensor . The situation when H is any group acting freely is analyzed in a second result. The invariant classes of homogeneous tensors are also investigated when reduction is performed. It turns out that the geometry of the fibres is involved in the preservation of some of them. Some classical examples illustrate the theory. Finally, the reduction procedure is applied to fibrings of almost contact manifolds over almost Hermitian manifolds. If the structure is, moreover, Sasakian, the obtained reduced tensor is homogeneous Kähler.

It is well known that a system of homogeneous second-order ordinary differential equations (spray) is necessarily isotropic in order to be metrizable by a Finsler function of scalar flag curvature. In our main result we show that the isotropy condition, together with three other conditions on the Jacobi endomorphism, characterize sprays that are metrizable by Finsler functions of scalar flag curvature. We call these conditions the scalar flag curvature (SFC) test. The proof of the main result provides an algorithm to construct the Finsler function of scalar flag curvature, in the case when a given spray is metrizable. Hilbert’s fourth problem asks to determine the Finsler functions with rectilinear geodesics. A Finsler function that is a solution to Hilbert’s fourth problem is necessarily of constant or scalar flag curvature. Therefore, we can use the constant flag curvature (CFC) test, which we developed in our previous paper, Bucataru and Muzsnay [‘Sprays metrizable by Finsler functions of constant flag curvature’, Differential Geom. Appl.31 (3)(2013), 405–415] as well as the SFC test to decide whether or not the projective deformations of a flat spray, which are isotropic, are metrizable by Finsler functions of constant or scalar flag curvature. We show how to use the algorithms provided by the CFC and SFC tests to construct solutions to Hilbert’s fourth problem.