Boundary-Moment Universality and Curvature Corrections in Random Geometric Graphs on Riemannian Manifolds
Let $(M,g)$ be a smooth, closed, connected $d$-dimensional Riemannian manifold, and let $X_1,\ldots,X_n$ be i.i.d.\ with common law $f\,d\mathrm{vol}_g$, where $f\in C^4(M)$ is strictly positive. We derive a uniform intrinsic second-order expansion for symmetric three-vertex edge-indicator statistics supported on connected configurations, including the induced-path and triangle kernels. The second-order term separates density variation, normal-coordinate Jacobians, and the curvature-induced motion of the internal-chord boundary. Within this three-vertex connected symmetric class, a universal boundary--moment identity reduces the kernel-dependent contribution to a common intrinsic functional involving $\int_M f\|\grad f\|_g^2\,d\mathrm{vol}_g$ and $\int_M f^3\operatorname{Scal}_g\,d\mathrm{vol}_g$. For the normalized path--triangle contrast, the Euclidean leading term cancels. We construct a consistent estimator of this intrinsic functional and, in a denser bandwidth regime, we prove an exact-expectation-centered root-\(n\) central limit theorem via the first Hoeffding projection. For uniform sampling on a closed surface, the estimator consistently recovers the Euler characteristic. We also study the threshold radius at which the maximum degree of a binomial random geometric graph first reaches two. Using the active-triple intensity expansion and a dependency-graph Poisson approximation, we obtain the order-$n^{-3/d}$ correction to the log-survival law for $d>6$.