Morse index of minimal products of minimal submanifolds in spheres

Abstract

Tang-Zhang, Choe-Hoppe, showed independently that one can produce minimal submanifolds in spheres via Clifford type minimal product of minimal submanifolds. In this note, we show that the minimal product is immersed by its first eigenfunctions (of its Laplacian) if and only if the two beginning minimal submanifolds are immersed by their first eigenfunctions. Moreover, we give estimates of Morse index and nullity of the minimal product. In particular, we show that the Clifford minimal submanifold $\left(\sqrt{\frac{n_1}{n}}S^{n_1},\cdots,\sqrt{\frac{n_k}{n}}S^{n_k}\right)\subset S^{n+k-1}$ has index $(k-1)(n+k+1)$ and nullity $(k-1)\sum_{1\leq i<j\leq k}(n_i+1)(n_j+1)$ (with $n=\sum n_j$).