A characterization of the second Veronese embedding into a complex projective space. (Q696362)

A smooth curve \(\gamma\) on a Riemannian manifold \(M\) is said to be of order 2 if it is parametrized by its arclength and if \(\dot{\gamma}, \nabla_{\dot{\gamma}}{\dot{\gamma}}\) and \(\nabla_{\dot{\gamma}}\nabla_{\dot{\gamma}}{\dot{\gamma}}\) are linear dependent at each point on the curve. Assume now that \(M\) is an \(n\)-dimensional Kähler manifold and let \(f:M \to {\mathbb{C}}P^ N(c)\) be a Kähler isometric full immersion. If for each geodesic \(\gamma\) on \(M\) the image curve \(f \circ \gamma\) on \({\mathbb{C}}P^ N(c)\) is of order 2, then f is either a local congruence or \(f\) is locally equivalent to the second Veronese embedding \(f_ 2:{\mathbb{C}}P^ n({c\over 2}) \to {\mathbb{C}}P^ N(c), N = {n(n+3)\over 2}\). This characterization theorem is a common improvement of results by \textit{K. Nomizu} [Nagoya Math. J. 60, 181--188 (1976; Zbl 0305.53046)] and \textit{J. S. Pak} and \textit{K. Sakamoto} [Tôhoku Math. J. (2) 38, 297--311 (1986; Zbl 0602.53036)], who required that all geodesics are mapped to circles or that the image of each geodesic is locally contained in a totally real totally geodesic submanifold \({\mathbb{R}}P^ 2({c \over 4})\) of \({\mathbb{C}}P^ N(c)\), respectively.