Topological obstructions for submanifolds in low codimension (Q1622883)

Every Riemannian manifold can be isometrically immersed into an Euclidean space with sufficiently high codimension. However, there are results that impose restrictions on isometric immersions with low codimension. Most of these obstructions are pointwise conditions on the range of curvature. Let \(\widetilde R=R-(r/n(n-1))R_1\), where \(R\) and \(r\) denote the \((0,4)\)-curvature tensor and the scalar curvature of the induced metric \(g\) respectively, and \(R_1=(1/2)g\circledast g\), where \(\circledast\) stands for the Kulkarni-Nomizu product. For higher codimension, there is a problem of the existence of a constant \(\varepsilon(n)\) depending only on \(n\) such that \(M\) is homeomorphic to the sphere \(\mathbb S^n\) if \(\int_{\!M}\left\|\widetilde R\right\|^{n/2}dM<\varepsilon(n)\), where \(M\) is a compact \(n\)-dimensional Riemannian manifold which admits an isometric immersion into \(\mathbb R^{2n-1}\). In this paper, the authors investigate obstructions for immersions with low codimension that involve total curvature \(\widetilde R\) and provide integral curvature bounds in terms of the Betti numbers. If \(f:M\to\mathbb R^{n+k}\) is an isometric immersion of a connected oriented manifold \(M\) without boundary with \(i\)-th Betti number \(\beta_i(M;\mathbb F)\) over an arbitrary coefficient field \(\mathbb F\), then \(S\) and \(H\) are the squared norm of the second fundamental form and the mean curvature, respectively, and \(S_\delta=S-\delta n^2H^2\) and \(S_{\delta_+}=\max\{S_\delta,0\}\) for \(\delta>0\). The authors prove that if \(1/n<\delta<1\) for \(n\geq 4\), then there exists a positive constant \(c(n,\delta)\) such that if \(M\) is a compact \(n\)-dimensional Riemannian manifold that admits an isometric immersion into \(\mathbb R^{n+k}\) with codimension \(2\leq k\leq n/2\), then \[ \int_M\left\|\widetilde R\right\|^{n/2}dM+\int_MS^{n/2}_{\delta_+}dM\geq c(n,\delta)\sum_{i=k}^{n-k}\beta_i(M;\mathbb F). \] Moreover, if \(\int_M\left\|\widetilde R\right\|^{n/2}dM+\int_MS^{n/2}_{\delta_+}dM< c(n,\delta)\), then \(M\) has the homotopy type of a \(CW\)-complex with no cells of dimension \(k\leq i\leq n-k\). If, in addition, \(k=2\), then the fundamental group \(\pi_1(M)\) is a free group on \(\beta_1(M;\mathbb Z)\) generators, and \(M\) is homeomorphic to \(\mathbb S^n\) if \(\pi_1(M)\) is finite. If \(S\leq\delta n^2H^2\) holds everywhere, then an isometric immersion is called \(\delta\)-pinched. The authors show that if a compact Riemannian manifold \(M\) admits an isometric \(\delta\)-pinched immersion into \(\mathbb R^{n+k}\) with codimension \(2\leq k\leq n/2\) and \(1/n<\delta<1\), then \(\int_M\left\|\widetilde R\right\|^{n/2}dM\geq c(n,\delta)\sum_{i=k}^{n-k}\beta_i(M;\mathbb F)\). Moreover, if \(\int_M\left\|\widetilde R\right\|^{n/2}dM< c(n,\delta)\), then \(M\) has the homotopy type of a \(CW\)-complex with no cells of dimension \(k\leq i\leq n-k\). If, in addition, \(k=2\), then the fundamental group \(\pi_1(M)\) is a free group on \(\beta_1(M;\mathbb Z)\) generators, and \(M\) is homeomorphic to \(\mathbb S^n\) if \(\pi_1(M)\) is finite. Furthermore, the authors obtain intrinsic obstructions for minimal submanifolds in spheres with pinched second fundamental form.