Rigidity of manifolds with boundary under a lower Ricci curvature bound

Abstract: We study Riemannian manifolds with boundary under a lower Ricci curvature bound, and a lower mean curvature bound for the boundary. We prove a volume comparison theorem of Bishop-Gromov type concerning the volumes of the metric neighborhoods of the boundaries. We conclude several rigidity theorems. As one of them, we obtain a volume growth rigidity theorem. We also show a splitting theorem of Cheeger-Gromoll type under the assumption of the existence of a single ray.