On complete submanifolds with parallel mean curvature in product spaces (Q2436059)

This article deals with submanifolds \(\Sigma^m\) in Riemannian products of the type \(M^n(c)\times\mathbb{R}\), where \(M^n(c)\) is a space form of constant sectional curvature \(c\). Under the main assumption that \(\Sigma\) is non-minimal with parallel mean curvature vector field \(H\) and certain extra assumptions on the length of \(H\) and its angle with the factor \(\mathbb{R}\), it is shown that such a submanifold must be totally umbilical or pseudo-umbilical in the first factor \(M^n(c)\), in some cases as a hypersurface in some \(M^{m+1}(c)\). The proof is based on a Simons-type formula for the Laplacian of the norm of the second fundamental form.