The qc Yamabe problem on non-spherical quaternionic contact manifolds (Q1782002)

A quaternionic contact (qc) manifold \((M,g,\mathbb Q)\) is a \(4n+3\)-dimensional manifold \(M\) with a codimension three distribution \(H\), locally given as the kernel of an \(\mathbb R^3\)-valued 1-form \(\eta=\eta_{_1}\times\eta_{_2}\times\eta_{_3}\), that is equipped with a Riemannian metric \(g\) and a rank-three bundle \(\mathbb Q\) consisting of endomorphisms of \(H\) locally generated by three almost complex structures \(I_i\), \(i=1,2,3\), on \(H\) satisfying the identities of the imaginary unit quaternions. If \(g\) is a fixed metric in the conformal class \([g]\) on \(H\), then there exists a unique linear connection \(\nabla\) preserving the qc structure for every metric in the conformal class \([g]\), this is called the Biquard connection. The qc Yamabe problem on a compact qc manifold M is the problem of finding a metric \(\overline g\in [g]\) on \(H\) for which the qc-scalar curvature is constant. The question reduces to the solvability of the qc Yamabe equation \[ {\mathcal{L}}f=4\frac{Q+2}{Q-2}\Delta f-fS=-f^{2^*-1}\overline S, \] where \(\Delta\) is the sub-Laplacian, \(\Delta f=\text{tr}^g(\nabla^2f)\), \(S\) and \(\overline S\) are the qc-scalar curvatures correspondingly of \((M,\eta)\) and \(\left(M,\overline\eta=f^{4/(Q-2)}\eta\right)\), where \(2^*=\frac{2Q}{Q-2}\), with \(Q=4n+6\)-the homogeneous dimension. If \((M,[\eta])\) is a qc manifold with a fixed conformal class defined by a qc contact form \(\eta\), then the solutions to the qc Yamabe problem are critical points of the qc Yamabe functional \[ {\mathcal{Y}}_M(\eta)=\frac{\int\limits_MS\text{Vol}_\eta}{\left(\int\limits_M\text{Vol}_\eta\right)^{2/2^*}}, \] where \(\text{Vol}_\eta\) is the natural volume form associated to the contact form \(\eta\), and \(2^*=\frac{2n+3}{n+1}\). The qc Yamabe constant is defined by \(\lambda(M)=\lambda(M,[\eta])=\inf\limits_\eta{\mathcal{Y}}_M(\eta)\). In [``The qc Yamabe problem on 3-Sasakian manifolds and the quaternionic Heisenberg group'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1504.03142}], \textit{S. Ivanov} et al. studied the qc Yamabe problem on 3-Sasakian manifolds and calculated the qc Yamabe constant on the standard unit 3-Sasakian sphere \(S^{4n+3}\) to be \[ \Lambda=\lambda(S^{4n+3})=\frac{16n(n+2)2^{\frac1{2n+3}}}{(2n+1)^{\frac1{2n+3}}}\pi^{\frac{2n+2}{2n+3}}. \] In this paper, the authors consider the qc Yamabe problem on non-spherical qc manifolds. They show that if \(M\) is a compact qc manifold of dimension \(4n+3\) and \(M\) is not locally qc equivalent to the standard 3-Sasakian structure on the sphere \(S^{4n+3}\), then \(\lambda(M)<\Lambda\), and thus the qc Yamabe problem can be solved on \(M\).