On geometric and stochastic mean values for small geodesic spheres in Riemannian manifolds (Q1100740)

Let M be an n-dimensional connected \(C^{\infty}\) Riemannian manifold, \(n\geq 3\). Denote by B(m,\(\epsilon)\) the ball of radius \(\epsilon\) around \(m\in M\). Fix \(m\in M\) and let \(f: M\to {\mathbb{R}}\) be continuous. The first mean value of f is defined to be \[ M(f,\epsilon):=[vol(\partial B(m,\epsilon))]^{-1}\int_{\partial B(m,\epsilon)}f(z)\quad d\sigma (z), \] where \(d\sigma\) denotes the volume element on \(\partial B(m,\epsilon)\). The second mean value of f is \[ L(f,\epsilon):=(vol S^{n-1})^{-1}\int_{S^{n-1}}f\circ \exp_ m(\epsilon u)\quad du, \] where \(S^{n-1}\) is the unit sphere in the tangent space \(T_ mM\). Finally, the stochastic mean value of f is \(E(f(X(T_{\epsilon})))\), where X is a Brownian motion on M starting in \(m\in M\), \(T_{\epsilon}\) is the first exit time from B(m,\(\epsilon)\), and E denotes expectation with respect to the Wiener measure. The zeroth mean value will be understood to be f(m) itself. The authors formulate a set of twelve conditions on mutual equalities between the four means up to an error term of order \(O(\epsilon^{2k+2})\) to hold for all \(f\in C^{2k+2}\) or f harmonic, resp., and \(m\in M\). Here k is a positive integer or \(k=\infty\), where for \(k=\infty\) the error term is understood to be zero. The main result goes like this: Suppose M is \(C^{\omega}\). Then each of the twelve conditions is equivalent to: M being a harmonic space if \(k=\infty\); M being an Einstein space if \(k=2\); M being a super-Einstein space if \(k=3.\) Most of the implications also hold if M is \(C^{\infty}\) only.