Complete solution of the \(C^0\) compactness of the set of solutions of the Yamabe equation (Q880107)

The Yamabe problem on a Riemannian manifold \((M,g)\) amounts to solve the following nonlinear semilinear equation: \( - L u = c u^p, u > 0\), where \(L\) is the conformal Laplacian , \(c\) is a constant and \(p = \frac{n + 2}{n - 2}\) is the critical Sobolev exponent. Indeed each solution to the above equation gives rise to a metric \(h := u^{\frac{4}{n - 2}}g\) which has a constant scalar curvature and is conformally related to the background metric \(g\). The existence of a solution of the Yamabe problem has been solved by T. Aubin and R. Schoen. In 1991, R. Schoen going beyond the existence question conjectured that the set of solutions of the above equation is compact with respect to the \(C^0\)-topology. Moreover, he gave a proof of such a conjecture in the case of locally conformally flat manifolds. In the paper under review, the last one of a series of three papers devoted by the author to the above conjecture, he gives a proof of the full conjecture. The proof is by contradiction and is based on the two first papers and on some of the formulae derived there, in particular a carefull expansion of the Green's function of the conformal Laplacian in terms of the order of vanishing of the Weyl tensor at possible blow up points.