A perturbation result for the Webster scalar curvature problem on the CR sphere. (Q1406921)

Let \(\mathbb{S}^{2n+1}\) be the unit sphere of \(\mathbb{C}^{n+1}\) and let \(O_0\) denote the standard contact form of the CR manifold \(\mathbb{S}^{2n+1}\). Given a smooth function \(\overline R\) on \(\mathbb{S}^{2n+1}\), the Webster scalar curvature problem on \(\mathbb{S}^{2n+1}\) consists in finding a contact form \(O\) conformal to \(O_0\) such that the corresponding Webster scalar curvature is \(\overline R\). Using a perturbation method, the authors obtain some existence results for curvatures close to a positive constant. More precisely, they consider curvatures \(\overline R\) of the form \(\overline R(\xi)= 1+\varepsilon K(\xi)\), for a small \(\varepsilon\) and a smooth Morse function \(K\) satisfying the following conditions: \[ \Delta_{\mathbb{H}^n} K(\xi)\neq 0\quad\text{if }K'(\xi)= 0,\qquad \sum_{\substack{ K'(\xi)= 0\\ \Delta_{\mathbb{H}^n}K(\xi)< 0}} (-1)^{m(K,\xi)}\neq -1, \] where \(\Delta_{\mathbb{H}^n}\) is the Heisenberg sub-Laplacian and \(m(K,\xi)\) is the Morse index of \(K\) at \(\xi\).