The Yamabe problem on quaternionic contact manifolds (Q997564)

The Yamabe problem concerning the conformal deformation of Riemannian metric \(g\) into a~metric \(ug\) of constant scalar curvature is thoroughly discussed for the compact quaternionic contact manifold \(M\) equipped with the Carnot--Carathéodory metric. Normal coordinates on \(M\) provides the efficient tool, the osculating standard quaternionic structure \(H^n\) on the quaternionic Heisenberg group. Then the common methods (Green functions, Sobolev and Harnack inequalities, and so on) are applied in the sub-Laplacian case in order to obtain the following result. Let \(\vartheta=(\vartheta_1,\vartheta_2,\vartheta_3)\) be \(\mathbb{R}^3\)--valued contact form on \(M\), where dim \(M=4n+3\) and dim\(\,\)Ker \(\vartheta=4n.\) Let \(g\) be the Carnot--Carathéodory metric defined by \[ g(I_\beta X,Y)=d\vartheta_\beta(X,Y),\;I^2_\beta=-id,\;I_1I_2I_3=-id \] (this provides the quaternionic contact structure on \(M,\) by definition). If the inequality \(\lambda(M)<\lambda(H^n)\) for the Yamabe invariants is satisfied, then the Yamabe equation \[ 4c_n\Delta _\vartheta u+s_\vartheta u=\lambda u^{c_n}\;\;\left(c_n=\frac{Q+2}{Q-2}, Q=4n+6, s_\vartheta=T_rRic\right) \] with the sub-Laplacian \(\Delta _\vartheta\) associated to \(\vartheta\) has a~positive solution. Recall that the Yamabe equation is Euler--Lagrange equation of a~constrained variational problem \(A_\vartheta(u)\rightarrow \inf\) and then \[ \lambda(M)=\inf_\vartheta\left(A_\vartheta(u): \int_M |u|^{2Q/(Q-2)}dM=1\right). \]