Defining a function on the set of all Riemannian metrics associated to a contact form on a compact manifold by taking the integral of the Ricci curvature in the direction of the characteristic vector field, it is shown that on a compact regular contact manifold the only critical points of this function are the metrics for which the characteristic vector field generates a group of isometrics.

A pseudo-Riemannian manifold is said to be timelike (spacelike) Osserman if the Jordan form of the Jacobi operator Kx is independent of the particular unit timelike (spacelike) tangent vector X. The first main result is that timelike (spacelike) Osserman manifold (M, g) of signature (2, 2) with the diagonalizable Jacobi operator is either locally rank-one symmetric or flat. In the nondiagonalizable case the characteristic polynomial of Kx has to have a triple zero, which is the other main result. An important step in the proof is based on Walker's study of pseudo-Riemannian manifolds admitting parallel totally isotropic distributions. Also some interesting additional geometric properties of Osserman type manifolds are established. For the nondiagonalizable Jacobi operators some of the examples show a nature of the Osserman condition for Riemannian manifolds different from that of pseudo-Riemannian manifolds.

Let M be an n-dimensional complete Riemannian manifold with Ricci curvature bounded from below. Let be an N-dimensional (N < n) complete, simply connected Riemannian manifold with nonpositive sectional curvature. We shall prove in this note that if there exists an isometric immersion φ of M into with the property that the immersed manifold is contained in a ball of radius R and that the mean curvature vector H of the immersion has bounded norm ∥H∥ > H0, (H0 > 0) then R > H−10.

The study of the integral of the scalar curvature, ∫MRdVg, as a function on the set of all Riemannian metrics of the same total volume on a compact manifold is now classical, and the critical points are the Einstein metrics. On a compact contact manifold we consider this and ∫M (R − R* − 4n2) dv, with R* the *-scalar curvature, as functions on the set of metrics associated to the contact structure. For these integrals the critical point conditions then become certain commutativity conditions on the Ricci operator and the fundamental collineation of the contact metric structure. In particular, Sasakian metrics, when they exist, are maxima for the second function.

We characterize four-dimensional generalized complex forms and construct an Einstein and weakly *-Einstein Hermitian manifold with pointwise constant holomorphic sectional curvature which is not globally constant.

In this paper we prove a uniqueness theorem for minimal discs in R3 spanning a polygonal boundary.

We prove that a compact orientable Einstein-Thorpe manifold of dimension 8 that satisfies 6X = |P2| must be flat.

Let 0 = λ0 < λ1 ≤ λ2 ≤ λ3 ≤ … denote the sequence of eigenvalues of the Laplacian of a compact minimal submanifold in a unit sphere. Yang and Yau obtained an upper bound on λn+1 in terms of λn and the sum λ1 + … + λn. In this note we shall prove an improved version of this upper bound by using the method of Hile and Protter.

We begin a study of invariant isometric immersions into Riemannian manifolds (M, g) equipped with a Riemannian flow generated by a unit Killing vector field ξ. We focus our attention on those (M, g) where ξ is complete and such that the reflections with respect to the flow lines are global isometries (that is, (M, g) is a Killing-transversally symmetric space) and on the subclass of normal flow space forms. General results are derived and several examples are provided.

We determine the naturally reductive homogeneous real hypersurfaces in the family of curvature-adapted real hypersurfaces in quaternionic projective space HPn(n ≥ 3). We conclude that the naturally reductive curvature-adapted real hypersurfaces in HPn are Q-quasiumbilical and vice-versa. Further, we study the same problem in quaternionic hyperbolic space HHn(n ≥ 3).

In this paper we study the asymptotic behavior of cylindrical ends in compact foliated 3-manifolds and give a sufficient condition for these ends to spiral onto a toral leaf.

In this paper we consider how much we can say about an irreducible symmetric space M which admits a single hypersurface with at most two distinct principal curvatures. Then we prove that if N is conformally flat, then N is quasiumbilical and M must be a sphere, a real projective space or the noncompact dual of a sphere or a real projective space.

We give an account of the minimal volume of the plane, as defined by Gromov, and first computed by Bavard and Pansu. We also describe some related geometric inequalities.

In this paper we prove that minimal 3-spheres of CR type with constant sectional curvature c in the complex projective space CPn are all equivariant and therefore the immersion is rigid. The curvature c of the sphere should be c = 1/(m2-1) for some integer m≥ 2, and the full dimension is n = 2m2-3. An explicit analytic expression for such an immersion is given.

In this work we study the behaviour of compact, smooth, orientable, spacelike hypersurfaces without boundary, which are immersed in cosmological spacetimes and move under the inverse mean curvature flow. We prove longtime existence and regularity of a solution to the corresponding nonlinear parabolic system of partial differential equations.

In 1903 H. Minkowski obtained two integral formulae for closed convex surfaces in three dimensional Euclidean space. In this paper we obtain generalised Minkowski formulae on compact orientable immersed submanifolds of an arbitrary Riemannian manifold. By successive specialisation we indicate how known integral theorems can be obtained as particular cases of our result.

A Riccati inequality involving the Ricci curvature can be used to deduce many interesting results about the geometry and topology of manifolds. In this note we use it to present a short alternative proof to a theorem of Ambrose.

In this paper we establish an integral formula for compact hypersurfaces in non-flat space forms, and apply it to derive some interesting applications. In particular, we obtain a characterization of geodesic spheres in terms of a relationship between the scalar curvature of the hypersurface and the size of its Gauss map image. We also derive an inequality involving the average scalar curvature of the hypersurface and the radius of a geodesic ball in the ambient space containing the hypersurface, characterizing the geodesic spheres as those for which equality holds.

A submanifold of a Riemannian manifold is called a totally umbilical submanifold if the second fundamental form is proportional to the first fundamental form. In this paper, we shall prove that there is no totally umbilical submanifold of codimension less than rank M — 1 in any irreducible symmetric space M. Totally umbilical submanifolds of higher codimensions in a symmetric space are also studied. Some classification theorems of such submanifolds are obtained.

In this paper, we give a sufficient condition (Theorem) in order that one domain D1 bounded by a C2-smooth boundary can be enclosed in, or enclose, another domain D0 bounded by the same kind of boundary. A same kind of sufficient condition for convex bodies (Corollary) is also obtained.