Instability of spheres with deformed Riemannian metrics (Q1093929)

Let (M,g) be a compact Riemannian manifold; (M,g) is unstable if the identity map is unstable as a harmonic map - i.e. the Jacobi operator of the second variation of the energy functional has negative eigenvalues. The standard sphere is unstable in this sense in dimension \(\geq 3\). Using the Hopf fibration, the author constructs other unstable metrics \(g_ 1\) on \(S^{2n+1}\). He shows the eigenfunctions corresponding to the first eigenvalue of the standard Laplacian can be related to the eigenfunctions corresponding to negative eigenvalues of the Jacobi operator of the new metric \(g_ 1\). He also discusses various pinching results for \(g_ 1\); \(g_ 1\) is neither symmetric nor Einstein but is homogeneous.