Characterizations of umbilic hypersurfaces in warped product manifolds (Q2238053)

In this paper the authors consider closed orientable hypersurfaces in a wide class of warped product manifolds, which include space forms, de Sitter-Schwarzschild and Reissner-Nordström manifolds. The authors present some new characterizations of umbilic hypersurfaces, by using an integral formula or the Brendle Heintze-Karcher type inequality. These results can be viewed as generalizations of the classical Jellet-Liebmann theorem and the Alexandrov theorem in Euclidean space. The principal results of this paper are given by the following theorems: \textbf{Theorem 1.} Suppose that \((\bar{M}^{n+1}, \bar{g})\) is a warped product manifold satisfying \[\mathrm{Ric}^P>(n-1)(\lambda'^2-\lambda\lambda'')g^P,\] and \(x:M\to\bar{M}\) is an immersion of a closed orientable hypersurface \(M^n\) in \(\bar{M}\). If \(x(M)\) is locally star-shaped and satisfies \[\langle\nabla H, \partial_r\rangle\leq 0,\] then \(x(M)\) must be totally umbilic. \textbf{Theorem 2.} Suppose that \(\bar{M}=[0, \bar{r})\times_\lambda P^n\) is a warped product manifold, where \((P, g^P)\) is a closed Riemannian manifold with constant sectional curvature \(\varepsilon\) and \[\frac{\lambda''(r)}{\lambda(r)}+\frac{\varepsilon-(\lambda'(r))^2}{(\lambda(r))^2}\geq 0.\] Let \(x: M\to\bar{M}\) be an immersion of a closed orientable hypersurface \(M^n\) in \(M\). For any fixed \(k\) with \(2 \leq k \leq n-1\), if \(x(M)\) is \(k\)-convex, locally star-shaped, and satisfies \[\langle \nabla H_k, \partial_r\rangle\leq 0,\] then \(x(M)\) must be totally umbilic. And finally, they give a third theorem which is a new application of Minkowski-type formula and a Brendle Heintze-Karcher type inequality. In the appendix, the authors show that a hypersurface with a given positive mean curvature function is the critical point of the area functional under variations preserving weighted volume.