Strong Green function rigidity conjecture for embedded hypersurfaces

Let MnRn+1M^n\subset\mathbb{R}^{n+1} be a smooth closed embedded hypersurface. Let pMp\in M be a point such that the Green function of the corresponding conformally invariant operator has the form described for the round sphere, namely an expression in terms of the Euclidean distance from pp to another point of MM.

Strong Green function rigidity conjecture. If there exists such a point pMp\in M, then MM must be a round sphere.

This is a converse to the explicit Green function formulas for conformally invariant operators on round spheres. The stronger condition that the formula hold for every pair of points implies that all points of MM are umbilical; the conjecture asks whether the condition at just one point already forces spherical geometry.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Mijia Lai and Chilin Zhang, “Green function rigidity for two dimensional sphere”, arXiv:2601.03773 (2026).

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