Scalar curvature of a metric with unit volume (Q1087152)

For a compact n-manifold M equipped with a conformal class C of Riemannian metrics, \(\mu\) (M,C) is defined as the infimum of the Yamabe functional; \(\mu (M,C)=\inf \{\int _{M}R_ gdv_ g;\quad g\in C\quad and\quad Vol(M,g)=1\},\) where \(R_ g\) is the scalar curvature of g. Let \(\mu (M)=\sup _{C}\mu (M,C)\). Then the set \({\mathcal S}(M)=\{R_ g\in C^{\infty}(M);\quad Vol(M,g)=1\}\) is described as follows: If \(n=2\), then \({\mathcal S}(M)=\{f\in C^{\infty}(M);\quad \min f<\mu (M)<\max f\quad or\quad f=\mu (M)\};\) if \(n\geq 3\), \(\mu\) (M)\(\leq 0\) and \(\mu (M)=\mu (M,C)\) for some C, then \({\mathcal S}(M)=\{f\in C^{\infty}(M);\quad \min f<\mu (M)\quad or\quad f=\mu (M)\};\) If \(n\geq 3\), \(\mu\) (M)\(\leq 0\) and \(\mu (M)>\mu (M,C)\) for all C, then \({\mathcal S}(M)=\{f\in C^{\infty}(M)\); min f\(<\mu (M)\}\). If \(n\geq 3\) and \(\mu (M)>0\) then \({\mathcal S}(M)\) contains all nonconstant functions and constants less than \(\mu\) (M). As for the number \(\mu\) (M), the following formula is shown: \[ \mu (M_ 1\#M_ 2)\geq -(| \mu (M_ 1)| ^{n/2}+| \mu (M_ 2)| ^{n/2})^{2/n}\quad if\quad \mu (M_ 1)\leq 0 \] and \[ \mu (M_ 2)\leq 0;\quad \mu (M_ 1\#M_ 2)\geq \min \{\mu (M_ 1),\mu (M_ 2)\} \] otherwise. In each case the dimension is assumed to be at least three.