On the index of minimal hypersurfaces of spheres

Publication date: 27 February 2019

Abstract: Let

M s u b s e t S^{n + 1} s u b s e t m a t h b b R^{n + 2}

be a compact minimal hypersurface of the

n

-dimensional Euclidean unit sphere. Let us denote by

| A |^{2}

the square of the norm of the second fundamental form and

J (f) = - D e l t a f - n f - | A |^{2} f

the stability operator. It is known that the index (the number of negative eigenvalues of

J

) is 1 when

M

is a totally geodesic sphere, and it is

n + 3

when

M

is a Clifford minimal hypersurface. It has been conjectured that for any other minimal hypersurface, the index must be greater than

n + 3

. One partial result for this conjecture states that if the index is

n + 3

and

M

is not Clifford, then

i n t_{M} | A |^{2} < n | M |

where

| M |

is the

n

dimensional volume of

M

. Somehow this partial result states that if the index of

M

is

n + 3

then the average of the function

| A |^{2}

needs to be small. In this note we prove that this average cannot be very small. We will show that for any pair of positive numbers

d e l t a_{1}

and

d e l t a_{2}

with

d e l t a_{1} + d e l t a_{2} = 1

, if

i n t_{M} | A |^{2} l e d e l t a_{2} n | M |

and

| A |^{2} (x) l e 2 n d e l t a_{1}

for all

x i n M

, then the index of

M

is greater than

n + 3

.

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