Rigidity of generalized laplacians and some geometric applications. (Summary).
We prove that if M is a complete noncompact Riemannian manifold whose Ricci tensor is cyclic parallel and whose scalar curvature is nonpositive, then M is Einstein, provided the Sobolev constant is positive and an integral inequality is satisfied.
We consider the decomposition of a compact-type symmetric space into a product of factors and show that the rank-one factors, when considered as totally geodesic submanifolds of the space, are isolated from inequivalent minimal submanifolds.