A characterization for 3-spheres (Q1313102)

Let \(M\) be an \(n\)-dimensional compact smooth manifold. The purpose of the paper under review is to consider the pinching of the Ricci curvature for the hypersurface \(\psi : M \to \mathbb{R}^{n + 1}\). In the case of the standard embedding \(\psi : S^ n(c) \to \mathbb{R}^{n + 1}\) of the sphere \(S^ n(c)\), for each unit vector field \(X\) on \(S^ n(c)\) we have \(\| \psi\|^ 2 \text{Ric}(X,X) = n - 1\), where Ric is the Ricci tensor of \(S^ n(c)\). Suppose that \(\psi: M \to \mathbb{R}^{n+1}\) is an arbitrary compact connected immersed hypersurface such that \(\| \psi\|^ 2 \text{Ric}(X,X) = n - 1\) for all unit vector fields \(X\) on \(M\). The author considers the question: Must \(\psi(M)\) be a Euclidean sphere? In the paper under review he answers this question in the affirmative for \(n = 3\).