Isotropic minimal immersions of spheres into spheres (Q1069148)

This paper deals with the problem of characterizing, among all minimal immersions \(\psi\) of n-spheres into spheres of curvature 1, the standard minimal immersions \(\psi_{n,s}\) defined by spherical harmonics (n\(\geq 3\), \(s\geq 4)\). The main theorem gives a characterization in terms of the properties that degree \(\psi\geq [s/2]\) and the j-th fundamental form of \(\psi\) is isotropic for all \(j\leq [s/2]\); and a similar result for the other compact rank one symmetric spaces. It is shown that [s/2] is sharp in most cases. The theorem leads to a second characterization, by the property of carrying all geodesics \(\sigma\) to curves whose higher curvatures are constants independent of \(\sigma\).