Curvature-adapted submanifolds of symmetric spaces

Abstract

Curvature-adapted submanifolds have been extensively studied in complex and quaternionic space forms. This paper extends their study to a wider class of ambient spaces. We generalize Cartan's theorem classifying isoparametric hypersurfaces of spheres to any compact symmetric space. Our second objective is to investigate such hypersurfaces in some specific symmetric spaces. We classify those with constant principal curvatures in the octonionic planes. Various classification results for hypersurfaces in complex two-plane Grassmannians are also obtained.