A note on the fundamental group of a compact minimal hypersurface (Q1100745)

A well-known theorem of Frankel says that if \(\Sigma\) is a compact immersed minimal hypersurface in a Riemannian manifold M with strictly positive Ricci curvature then the homomorphism of fundamental groups induced by inclusion is onto. The purpose of this paper is to study the extent to which Frankel's theorem can fail when the Ricci curvature of the ambient manifold is only assumed to be nonnegative. In this case the author shows that there are five possible effects. As a corollary, if the homomorphism of fundamental groups is not onto, then \(\Sigma\) is an imbedded totally geodesic hypersurface of M.