Rigidity of complete manifolds with parallel Cotton tensor (Q2407402)

Let \((M,g)\) be a complete Riemannian manifold of dimension \(m\geq3\). Let \(\tilde{R}\) denote the trace-free Riemann curvature tensor. The authors study the rigidity of complete manifolds with parallel Cotton tensor and the pinching problem of stochastically complete manifolds. They use the weak maximum principle to show: Theorem. Let \((M,g)\) be a stochastically complete (but possibly not geodesically complete) Riemannian manifold with parallel Cotton tensor and constant positive scalar curvature \(\tau\). If \(\|\tilde{R}\|\leq\frac{\tau}{(m-1)C(m)}\), then \((M,g)\) has constant positive sectional curvature. Here \[ C(m)=\frac{2(m-2)}{\sqrt{m(m-1)}}+\frac{m^2-m-4}{\sqrt{(m-2)(m-1)m(m+1)}} +\frac{\sqrt{(m-2)(m-1)}}{\sqrt{m}}. \] The authors also study the rigidity of compact Riemannian manifolds and prove the following. Theorem. Let \((M,g)\) be a compact Riemannian manifold with parallel Cotton tensor and constant scalar cuvature \(\tau>0\). Then \[ \int_M\|\tilde{R}\|^2\left(\tau-(m-1)C(m)\|\tilde{R}\|\right)\leq0. \] Furthermore equality occurs if and only if \((M,g)\) is a spherical space form, i.e., an isometric finite quotient of the sphere. Section 1 contains a statement of results and puts matters in a historical context. Section 2 contains preliminaries concerning curvature estimates. The two theorems are then proved in Section 3.