Identifying Constant Curvature Manifolds, Einstein Manifolds, and Ricci Parallel Manifolds

Abstract: We establish variational formulas for Ricci upper and lower bounds, as well as a derivative formula for the Ricci curvature. As applications, constant curvature manifolds, Einstein manifolds and Ricci parallel manifolds are identified, respectively, with different integral-differential formulas and semigroup inequalities. Moreover, by using derivative and Hessian formulas for the heat semigroup $P_t$ developed from stochastic analysis, explicit Hessian estimates are derived on Einstein and Ricci parallel manifolds.