A lower bound of the energy functional of a class of vector fields and a characterization of the sphere

Abstract: Let $M$ be a compact, orientable, $n$-dimensional Riemannian manifold, $n\geq2$, and let $F$ be the energy functional acting on the space $\Xi (M)$ of $C^{\infty }$ vector fields of $M$, [ F(X):=\frac{\int_{M}\left\Vert \nabla X\right\Vert ^{2}dM}{\int_{M}\left\Vert X\right\Vert ^{2}dM}, X\in \Xi (M)\backslash{0}. % ] Let $G\in\operatorname*{Iso}\left(M\right)$ be a compact Lie subgroup of the isometry group of $M$ acting with cohomogeneity $1$ on $M$. Assume that any isotropy subgroup of $G$ is non trivial and acts with no fixed points on the tangent spaces of $M$, except at the null vectors. We prove in this note that under these hypothesis, if the Ricci curvature $\operatorname*{Ric}\nolimits_{M}$ of $M$ has the lower bound $\operatorname*{Ric}\nolimits_{M}\geq(n-1)k^{2}$, then $\operatorname*{F(X)}\geq(n-1)k^{2}$, for any $G$-invariant vector field $X\in \Xi (M)\backslash{0}$, and the equality occurs if and only if $M$ is isometric to the n-dimensional sphere $\mathbb{S}^{n}_k$ of constant sectional curvature $k^{2}$. In this case $X$ is an infimum of $F$ on $\Xi (\mathbb{S}^{n}_k).$