Biharmonic submanifolds in a Riemannian manifold (Q1750370)

\textit{B.-Y. Chen}'s conjecture [Soochow J. Math. 17, No. 2, 169--188 (1991; Zbl 0749.53037)] states that every biharmonic submanifold of a Euclidean space must be minimal. It has been proven under natural hypotheses, but not yet completely. In the current paper, the authors prove it for biharmonic hypersurfaces under the assumption that all principal curvatures are simple and that \(g(\nabla_{v_i}v_j,v_k)\neq0\) for all distinct triples of unit principle curvature vectors in the kernel of \(d\tau\). Here \(\tau\) is the tension field of the inclusion map. The authors point out that this is a statement without completeness assumption on the hypersurface. The proof is based on surprisingly explicit calculations which lead to impressive variable eliminations.