On the Chern conjecture for isoparametric hypersurfaces

Abstract

For a closed hypersurface $M^n\subset S^{n+1}(1)$ with constant mean curvature and constant non-negative scalar curvature, the present paper shows that if $\mathrm{tr}(\mathcal{A}^k)$ are constants for $k=3,\ldots, n-1$ for shape operator $\mathcal{A}$, then $M$ is isoparametric. The result generalizes the theorem of de Almeida and Brito \cite{dB90} for $n=3$ to any dimension $n$, strongly supporting Chern's conjecture.