  The comparison theory for the Riccati equation satisfied by the shape
operator of parallel hypersurfaces is generalized to semi-Riemannian manifolds
of arbitrary index, using one-sided bounds on the Riemann tensor which in the
Riemannian case correspond to one-sided bounds on the sectional curvatures.
Starting from 2-dimensional rigidity results and using an inductive technique,
a new class of gap-type rigidity theorems is proved for semi-Riemannian
manifolds of arbitrary index, generalizing those first given by Gromov and
Greene-Wu. As applications we prove rigidity results for semi-Riemannian
manifolds with simply connected ends of constant curvature.
