A GENERALIZATION OF AN INEQUALITY OF LI AND ZHONG, AND ITS GEOMETRIC APPLICATION

Let M be a n-dimensional compact Riemannian manifold with sectional curvature bounded below by one. Then Li and Zhong[3], and Li and Treibergs [4] proved that if the first eigenvalue of the Laplacian .lambda.$_{1}$ is less than some universal constant and if n.leq.4, then M is diffeomorphic to the n-sphere S$^{n}$ . The purpose of this paper is to prove this pinching theorem for all n with some extra condition.