Recent Developments on the First Chen Inequality in Differential Geometry

Abstract

One of the most fundamental interests in submanifold theory is to establish simple relationships between the main extrinsic invariants and the main intrinsic invariants of submanifolds and find their applications. In this respect, the first author established, in 1993, a basic inequality involving the first δ-invariant, δ(2), and the squared mean curvature of submanifolds in real space forms, known today as the first Chen inequality or Chen’s first inequality. Since then, there have been many papers dealing with this inequality. The purpose of this article is, thus, to present a comprehensive survey on recent developments on this inequality performed by many geometers during the last three decades.