Concentration-compactness phenomena in the higher order Liouville's equation (Q1024570)

The author investigates different concentration--compactness and blow-up phenomena related to the \(Q\)-curvature in an even dimensional Riemannian manifold. The author first treats the case of an open domain in \(\mathbb R^{2n}\), then that of a closed manifold and finally the particular case of the sphere \(S^{2m}\). In all cases the sign of the \(Q\)-curvature is allowed to vary. The author shows that, in the case of a closed manifold (contrary to the case of open domains in \(\mathbb R^{2m}\)) blow-up phenomena can occur only at points of positive \(Q\)-curvature. As a consequence, we always have compactness on a locally conformally flat manifold of non-positive Euler characteristic.