1. Preliminaries
In submanifold theory, Lagrangian submanifolds are studied not only for their special geometric properties, but also for their important roles in supersymmetric field theory and string theory. For these submanifolds in quaternionic space forms, we give an answer to one problem in submanifold theory, most precisely to find relationships between the main extrinsic invariants and intrinsic invariants.
The intrinsic characteristics of a Riemannian manifold are given by its curvature invariants. In the second section of this article, we recall the definition of 
-invariants (also known as Chen invariants) (see [
1]). This theory was initiated by Chen in [
2].
In 
Section 3 we derive an improved inequality for the Chen invariant 
 in the case of a Lagrangian submanifold in a quaternionic space form, regarded as a problem of constrained maxima, and recall the inequality which has been improved.
Let  be a complex m-dimensional Kaehler manifold endowed with an almost complex structure J and a Hermitian metric  and  an isometric immersion of an n-dimensional manifold  into . The submanifold  is called a totally real submanifold if . A totally real submanifold of maximum dimension, i.e.,  is called a Lagrangian submanifold.
If 
 has holomorphic constant sectional curvature 
, then it is called a 
complex space form and it is denoted by 
. Its Riemannian curvature tensor is given by
      
      for any vector fields 
 tangent to 
.
Let 
 be a Lagrangian submanifold of 
. One denotes by ∇ and 
 the Levi-Civita connections of 
 and 
, respectively. The Gauss and Weingarten formulae are given respectively by
      
      where 
X and 
Y are tangent vector fields, 
 is a normal vector field and 
D is the normal connection. The second fundamental form 
h and shape operator 
 are related by
      
The mean curvature vector 
H of 
 is defined by
      
In the case of a Lagrangian submanifold in a complex space form, we have the following relations
      
      and we point out that 
 is totally symmetric.
One denotes by 
 the sectional curvature of 
 associated with a plane section 
, 
 and by 
R the Riemannian curvature tensor of 
. Then the Gauss equation is given by
      
      for any vectors 
 tangent to 
 where 
 and 
For an orthonormal basis 
 of 
 at a point 
, we put
      
Because 
 is totally symmetric, it follows that
      
On the other hand, we recall the following result for a Riemannian submanifold 
 of a Riemannian manifold 
 (of an arbitrary codimension); let consider 
. We attach the optimum problem:
Then the following result holds (see [
3]).
Theorem 1. If  is a solution of the problem (
8)
, then - (a) 
- (b) 
- the bilinear form is semipositive definite, where h is the second fundamental form of the submanifold  in . 
   2. Chen Invariants
Let  be an n-dimensional Riemannian manifold and  the sectional curvature of  associated with a 2-plane section .
For any orthonormal basis 
 of the tangent space 
, the scalar curvature 
 at 
p is defined by
      
The Chen first invariant is given by 
If 
L is a subspace of 
 of dimension 
 and 
 an orthonormal basis of 
L, the scalar curvature 
 of the 
r-plane section 
L is given by
      
For given integers  and , one denotes by  the finite set of all k-tuples  of integers satisfying  Let .
For each 
 and each point 
, B.-Y. Chen introduced a Riemannian invariant defined by
      
      where 
 run over all 
k mutually orthogonal subspaces of 
 such that 
, 
.
We recall the most important Chen inequalities for submanifolds in real space forms.
Theorem 2 ([
2]). 
Let  be an n-dimensional () submanifold of a real space form  of constant sectional curvature c. Then The equality case was characterized in terms of the shape operator.
The same inequality holds for totally real submanifolds in complex space forms. A corresponding inequality for slant submanifolds in complex space forms was obtained in [
4].
However, for Lagrangian submanifolds in complex space forms the above inequality, known as 
Chen first inequality, was improved by Bolton et al. [
5]. Moreover, one of the present authors improved the Chen first inequality for Kaehlerian slant submanifolds in complex space forms (see [
6]).
For each 
, one denotes by:
The following sharp inequality involving the Chen invariants and the squared mean curvature obtained in [
7] plays a very important role in this topic.
Theorem 3. For each  and each n-dimensional submanifold  in a Riemannian space form  of constant sectional curvature , the inequalityis fulfilled.  Chen also pointed-out that a similar inequality holds for totally real (in particular Lagrangian) submanifolds in a complex space form.
  3. Lagrangian Submanifolds in Quaternionic Space Forms
Chen et al. established the following inequalities for Chen invariants of Lagrangian submanifolds in complex space forms, which improve the inequality (
10).
Theorem 4 ([
8]). 
Let  be a Lagrangian submanifold of a complex space form . For a given k-tuple , we put . If , then the inequalityis satisfied. In particular, one has (see also [
9]).
Theorem 5. Let  be a Lagrangian submanifold of a complex space form  Then the following inequality holds. The equality sign holds at a point  if and only if there is an orthonormal basis  at p such that with respect to this basis the second fundamental form h satisfies the following conditions  Next, we recall some basic notions about quaternionic space forms.
Let 
 be a differentiable manifold and we assume that there is a rank 3 subbundle 
 of 
 such that a local basis 
 exists on sections of 
 satisfying for all 
      where Id denotes the identity field of type 
 on 
 and the indices are taken from 
 modulo 3. The bundle 
 is called an 
almost quaternionic structure on 
 and 
 is called a canonical basis of 
. 
 is said to be an 
almost quaternionic manifold. It is easy to see that any almost quaternionic manifold is of dimension 
A Riemannian metric 
 on 
 is said to be 
adapted to the almost quaternionic structure if it satisfies
      
      for all vector fields 
 on 
 and any canonical basis 
 on 
. 
 is said to be an 
almost quaternionic Hermitian manifold.
 is said to be a 
quaternionic Kaehler manifold if the bundle 
 is parallel with respect to the Levi-Civita connection 
 of 
, i.e., locally defined 1-forms 
 exist such that we have
      
      for all 
 and for any vector field 
X on 
, where the indices are taken from 
 modulo 3.
Let 
 be a quaternionic Kaehler manifold and let 
X be a non-null vector on 
. The 4-plane spanned by 
 is called a 
quaternionic 4-plane and is denoted by 
. Any 2-plane in 
 is called a 
quaternionic plane. The sectional curvature of a quaternionic plane is called a 
quaternionic sectional curvature. A quaternionic Kaehler manifold is a 
quaternionic space form if its quaternionic sectional curvature are equal to a constant, say 
, i.e., its curvature tensor is given by
      
      for all vector fields 
 on 
 and any local basis 
 on 
.
A submanifold  of a quaternionic space form  is said to be Lagrangian if  for any  and 
On a Lagrangian submanifold 
 we can choose an orthonormal frame field in 
      such that, restricted to 
M, 
 are tangent to 
M.
We set
      
      and then, for any 
, we have (see (2.9) in [
10])
      
We denote by ), for .
By using the method of constrained maxima, we prove the following improved Chen inequality for the invariant  of Lagrangian submanifolds in quaternionic space forms, the main result of this paper.
Theorem 6. Let  be a Lagrangian submanifold of a quaternionic space form , . Then the inequalityis fulfilled. The equality sign holds at a point  if and only if there is an orthonormal basis  at p such that with respect to this basis the second fundamental form h satisfies the following conditions:  Proof.  Let  be a Lagrangian submanifold of the quaternionic space form ,  and  and  two mutual orthogonal plane sections at p. We denote  orthonormal bases, complete to an orthonormal basis  and extend it to  as above.
For each , let us consider certain quadratic forms.
For example, for 
, we will define the quadratic forms
        
        by
        
        for 
        for 
        for 
.
We shall find an upper bound for 
, subject to
        
        where 
 is a real number.
Let 
 an arbitrary point. The bilinear form 
 has the expression
        
        where 
 is the second fundamental form of 
P in 
 and 
 is the standard inner-product on 
.
The partial derivatives of the function 
 are
        
In the standard frame of 
, the Hessian of 
 has the matrix
        
As 
P is totally geodesic in 
, we obtain
        
        then the Hessian of 
 is negative semidefinite.
Searching for the critical point 
 of 
, we denote by
        
From (
20) it follows that
        
In a similar manner, we obtain for 
Let’s consider now 
, as:
        
The partial derivatives of the function 
 are
        
In the standard frame of 
, the Hessian of 
 has the matrix
        
As 
P is totally geodesic in 
, we have
        
        and hence the Hessian of 
 is negative semidefinite.
If we denote by 
 a solution of the extremum problem in question, then we have
        
Since 
 then 
 which implies
        
It follows that
        
        or, equivalently,
        
In a similar manner, we prove for 
:
        
Using the same procedure for
        
        we find the partial derivatives of 
In the standard frame of 
, the Hessian of 
 has the matrix
        
As 
P is totally geodesic in 
, we have
        
        and hence the Hessian of 
 is negative semidefinite.
Using similar arguments to those in the previous problem we obtain that the solution of the associated extremum problem is
        
        where 
 is a real number.
Since 
 then 
 and
        
From this we get
        
        or, equivalently,
        
In the same manner we prove for 
, with 
,
        
Applying this procedure for each 
 and taking into account that
        
        we find
        
        which is the inequality to prove. □
 Remark 1. In [11], the first author obtained certain Chen inequalities for Lagrangian submanifolds  in quaternionic space forms . In particular, for the Chen invariant  one derives the inequality We want to point-out that the inequality from Theorem 6 improves the inequality (21) because , for .  
   
  
    Author Contributions
Conceptualization, G.M.; methodology, A.M.; software, G.M.; validation, G.M., A.M. and I.M.; formal analysis, I.M.; investigation, G.M., A.M. and I.M.; writing—review and editing, G.M. and A.M.; supervision, I.M. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding
This research received no external funding.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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