Sharp pinching theorems for complete submanifolds in the sphere

For every complete and minimally immersed submanifold f WMn -> Sn+p whose second fundamental form satisfies vertical bar A vertical bar(2) <= np/(2p-1), we prove that it is either totally geodesic, or (a covering of) a Clifford torus or a Veronese surface in S-4, thereby extending the well-known results by Simons, Lawson and Chern, do Carmo & Kobayashi from compact to complete M-n. We also obtain the corresponding result for complete hypersurfaces with non-vanishing constant mean curvature, due to Alencar & do Carmo in the compact case, under the optimal bound on the umbilicity tensor. In dimension n <= 6, a pinching theorem for complete higher-codimensional submanifolds with non-vanishing parallel mean curvature is proved, partly generalizing previous work by Santos. Our approach is inspired by the conformal method of Fischer-Colbrie, Shen & Ye and Catino, Mastrolia & Roncoroni.