The zeta functional determinants on manifolds with boundary. II: Extremal metrics and compactness of isospectral set (Q1363571)

The authors continue the analysis of the functional determinant on smooth 4-manifolds with boundary, using the results obtained in their previous paper [Part I, ibid., 327-362 (1997; Zbl 0914.58039), see the preceding review)]. In particular, they consider two classes of conformal deformations of such manifolds: those which preserve the volume of the manifold (type I) and those which preserve the volume of the boundary (type II). The authors prove that, for suitable elliptic, differential conformally covariant boundary operators, isospectral metrics of type I are compact in the \(W^{2,2}\) topology, and the corresponding functional determinants have either a unique maximum or a conformal orbit of maxima in \(W^{2,2}\). Examples of such operators are the conformal Laplacian with either Dirichlet or Robin boundary conditions on \(S_+^4\), \( S^2\times S_+^2\), (where \(S_+^n\) is the \(n\)-hemisphere), or on \(\Sigma_g\times S_+^2\), with \(\Sigma_g\) being a hyperbolic surface of genus \(g>1\). The analysis in the case of metrics of type II is limited to the functional determinant on the Euclidean 4-ball \(B^4\), due to the added technical difficulties imposed by the nonlinear boundary conditions. In particular, they show that within the class of metrics of type II the determinants of suitable differential operators are either maximized or minimized at the standard metric of \(B^4\). Such operators include the conformal Laplacian with Robin boundary conditions. Along the way, the authors derive two inequalities which are essential to their approach: one is a sharp form of Moser-Adam's type inequality on 4-manifolds with Neumann boundary conditions, and the other is a sharp Lebedev-Milin type inequality on \(B^4\).