Introduction. A number of authors [C], [DW1], [DW2], [L], [T] have studied minimal isometric immersions of Riemannian manifolds into round spheres, and in particular of round spheres into round spheres. As was observed by T. Takahashi [T], if Φ:M → S(r) ⊂ R is such a minimal immersion, then the components of Φ must be eigenfuctions of the Laplace operator on M for the same eigenvalue. And conve...

In this paper, we deal with the problem of spherical interpolation of discretely given data of tensorial type. To this end, spherical tensor elds are investigated and a decomposition formula is described. It is pointed out that the decomposition formula is of importance for the spectral analysis of the gra-vitational tensor in (spaceborne) gradiometry. Tensor spherical harmonics are introduced ...