Scalar curvature rigidity for products of convex hypersurfaces

Abstract: Let $N = N_{1} \times \dotsm \times N_{k}$, where each $N_{i} \subset \mathbb{R}^{n_i+1}$ is a closed strictly convex hypersurface. Let $M$ be a Riemannian spin manifold of dimension $n = \dim(N)$, and let $f \colon M \to N$ be an area non-increasing smooth map of non-zero degree. We show that $\mathrm{scal}_M \geq \mathrm{scal}_N \circ f$ implies $\mathrm{scal}_M = \mathrm{scal}_N \circ f$. Moreover, if $n \geq 3$ and $N$ has no circle factors, then every such map is a Riemannian isometry. In the presence of circle factors, we obtain the corresponding optimal splitting theorem for $M$ and $f$. Our results are based on an approach to the index-theoretic part of Llarull's scalar curvature rigidity theorem via Clifford-linear family index theory, which works independently of the parity of the dimension and extends naturally to products. This includes a proof of the Geroch conjecture for spin manifolds as the edge case with only circle factors.