Rigidity of convex domains in manifolds with nonnegative Ricci and sectional curvature (Q583615)

The authors obtain rigidity results for manifolds with nonnegative curvature, sectional or Ricci that are inspired by results of Gromov from \textit{W. Ballmann}, \textit{M. Gromov} and \textit{V. Schroeder}, Manifolds of nonpositive curvature (Birkhäuser 1985; Zbl 0591.53001)] \((=BGS)\). An earlier generalization of Gromov's results along tese lines may be found in \textit{V. Schroeder} and \textit{W. Ziller} [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 320, No.1, 145-160 (1989)]. In the present paper the following results are proved: Theorem 1. Let M be a compact Riemannian manifold with convex boundary and nonnegative Ricci curvature. Assume that the sectional curvature is identically zero in some neighborhood U of \(\partial M\) and that one of the following conditions holds: a) \(\partial M\) is simply connected; b) dim \(\partial M\) is even and \(\partial M\) is strictly convex in some point \(p\in \partial M\). Then M is flat. Theorem 2. Let M be a Riemannian manifold of dimension \(n\geq 3\), and let \(B=B_ r(p_ 0)\) be a convex metric ball embedded by the exponential map \(\exp_{p_ 0}\) with boundary \(H=\partial B\). Assume that the Ricci curvature is nonnegative on B and furthermore that a) if n is odd, then \(K(\sigma)=0\) for all 2-planes \(\sigma\) with footpoint on H that are tangent to H or b) if n is even, then H is strictly convex and \(K(\sigma)=0\) for all 2-planes \(\sigma\) with footpoint on H. Then B is flat. Theorem 3. Let \(M_ 1\), \(M_ 2\) be complete, noncompact Riemannian manifolds with sectional curvature \(K\geq 0\). Let \(\Omega \subseteq M=M_ 1\times M_ 2\) be the complement of a compact subset. If \(\phi\) : \(\Omega\) \(\to \tilde M\) is an isometric embedding, where \(\tilde M\) is a complete manifold with \(K\geq 0\) and dim \(\tilde M=\dim M\), then \(\phi\) extends in a unique way to an isometry \(\phi\) : \(M\to \tilde M\). The third result is stated without proofs in [BGS,p. 75].