On critical sets of distance function to a taut submanifold (Q1069150)

Tautness for submanifolds in Euclidean spheres \(S^ n\) is characterized by the minimality on the total absolute curvature, and also equivalently by the minimality on the numbers of critical points of generic distance functions. The main theorem of this paper states that, in contrast with general submanifolds, every distance function from a point in \(S^ n\) to a taut submanifold has only nondegenerate critical manifolds in the sense of Bott, and that these critical manifolds are again taut. This answers the questions posed by R. Miyaoka and by J. Hebda, independently. As its consequences, it is proved, for example, that k-times connected sums of products of two spheres cannot be tautly embedded into any spheres (k\(\geq 2)\).