Minimality on biharmonic space-like submanifolds in pseudo-Riemannian space forms (Q2347270)

A biharmonic map is a critical point of the bienergy functional given by the square norm of the tension field, and a biharmonic submanifold is a submanifold whose inclusion map is biharmonic. In this paper, the authors investigate the minimality or the constraint of the mean curvature of space-like type biharmonic submanifolds in pseudo-Riemannian space forms. More precisely, let \(M^n\) be a pseudo-umbilical biharmonic space-like submanifold in pseudo-Riemannian space form \(N^{n+p}(c)\). The authors show that if \(c=0\) and the mean curvature vector \(\vec{H}\) is not light-like, then \(M\) is minimal; if \(c>0\) and \(\vec{H}\) is space-like, then either \(M\) is minimal or \(H^2 = c\); if \(c<0\) and \(\vec{H}\) is space-like, then \(M\) is minimal. Furthermore, they show that in case \(c>0\), it is impossible for \(\vec{H}\) to be time-like, and in case \(c <0\), \(H^2 = |c|\) if \(\vec{H}\) is time-like. Recall that a space-like submanifold is said to be pseudo-umbilical if it is umbilical with respect to the direction of the mean curvature vector \(\vec{H}\). As an application, the authors obtain several bounds for the scalar curvature of pseudo-umbilical biharmonic space-like submanifolds in pseudo-Riemannian space forms. The authors also study the structure of biharmonic space-like submanifolds with parallel mean curvature vector in pseudo-Riemannian space forms.