A generalization of Obata’s theorem

In a complete Riemannian manifold (M, g) if the hessian of a real-valued function satisfies some suitable conditions, then it restricts the geometry of (M, g). In this paper we characterize all compact rank-one symmetric spaces as those Riemannian manifolds (M, g) admitting a real-valued functionu such that the hessian ofu has at most two eigenvalues −u and under some mild hypotheses on (M, g). This generalizes a well-known result of Obata which characterizes all round spheres.