Abstract
In this paper, we study semi-slant submanifolds and warped product semi-slant submanifolds of Kenmotsu manifolds, which have not been considered in earlier studies. A characterization and a general sharp inequality for the lower bound of the squared norm of second fundamental form of such immersions are obtained. The necessary condition is obtained for the warped products to satisfy the equality case of the derived inequality. We also give non-trivial examples of such submanifolds.