Vanishing theorems for the cohomology groups of free boundary submanifolds (Q2423304)

The authors continue studying a gap in the space of minimal submanifolds in a ball \(B\) of Euclidean space in terms of the length of their (traceless) second fundamental forms \(A\) (respectively, \(\Phi\)) and their dimensions. For surfaces they prove the following results: Theorem 1.2 and Corollary 1.3. Let \(\Sigma^2\) be a free-boundary compact orientable surface immersed in \(B^{2+k}\), for any positive integer \(k\). If \(\|\Phi\|^2\le2\), then \(\Sigma^2\) is topologically a disk. If such \(\Sigma^2\) is minimally immersed and \(\|A\|^2\le4\), then \(\Sigma^2\) is the flat equatorial disk. Similar results for submanifolds \(M^n\) in \(B^{n+k}\) are proven with the additional assumption of a flat normal bundle. The authors ask whether the results for \(M^n\) hold without the condition on the flatness of the normal bundle and what the best constants are in such theorems?