Second variation and Legendrian stabilities of minimal Legendrian submanifolds in Sasakian manifolds

Abstract

First, we derive a new second variation formula which holds for minimal Legendrian submanifolds in Sasakian manifolds. Using this, we prove that any minimal Legendrian submanifold in an η-Einstein Sasakian manifold with “nonpositive” η-Ricci constant is stable. Next we introduce the notion of the Legendrian stability of minimal Legendrian submanifolds in Sasakian manifolds. Using our second variation formula, we find a general criterion for the Legendrian stability of minimal Legendrian submanifolds in η-Einstein Sasakian manifolds with “positive” η-Ricci constant.