Four-dimensional static and related critical spaces with harmonic curvature (Q1744262)

The authors consider an \(n\)-dimensional Riemannian manifold \((M,g)\) with constant scalar curvature \(R\) which admits a smooth nonzero solution \(f\) to the equation \[ \nabla df=f\left(\operatorname{Ric} -\frac{R}{n-1}\,g\right)+x\cdot \operatorname{Ric}+y(R)g,\tag{1} \] where Rc is the Ricci curvature of \(g\), \(x\) is a constant and \(y(R)\) a function of \(R\). Moreover, they consider some special cases of (1). A static space admits by definition a smooth nonzero solution \(f\) to \[ \nabla df=f\left(\operatorname{Ric} -\frac{R}{n-1}\,g\right)\,. \] A compact Riemannian manifold \((M,g)\) that admits a smooth nonzero solution \(f\), vanishing at the smooth boundary of \(M\), to \[ \nabla df=f\left(\operatorname{Ric} -\frac{R}{n-1}\,g\right)-\frac{g}{n-1} \] is said to be a Miao-Tam critical metric. This is a \(V\)-static space, i.e. a Riemannian manifold \((M,g)\) which admits a nontrivial solution \((f,c)\), for a constant \(c\), to the equation \[ \nabla df=f\left(\operatorname{Ric} -\frac{R}{n-1}\,g\right)-\frac{c}{n-1}\,g\,. \] Finally, the authors consider Riemannian manifolds \((M,g)\) which admit a nonconstant solution \(f\) to \[ \nabla df=f\left(\operatorname{Ric} -\frac{R}{n-1}\,g\right)+\operatorname{Ric}-\frac{R}{n}\,g \] and they call a metric \(g\) satisfying this condition a critical point metric. In the reviewed paper the authors completely characterize the four-dimensional Riemannian manifolds with harmonic curvature satisfying (1) with nonconstant \(f\). In the proofs they analyze the eigenvalues of the Ricci tensor, which is a Codazzi tensor. The authors prove that all Ricci-eigenvalues locally depend on only one variable and discuss the various cases of their multiplicity. The last sections are devoted to the classification of the four-dimensional spaces with harmonic curvature belonging to the mentioned above classes: static spaces, Miao-Tam critical metrics, \(V\)-static spaces and critical point metrics.