The Obata sphere theorems on a quaternionic contact manifold of dimension bigger than seven

Abstract

On a compact quaternionic contact (qc) manifold of dimension bigger than seven and satisfying a Lichnerowicz type lower bound estimate we show that if the rst positive eigenvalue of the sub-Laplacian takes the smallest possible value then, up to a homothety of the qc structure, the manifold is qc equivalent to the standard 3-Sasakian sphere. The same conclusion is shown to hold on a non-compact qc manifold which is complete with respect to the associated Riemannian metric assuming the existence of a function with traceless horizontal Hessian.