Smooth Yamabe invariant and surgery (Q1951486)

The smooth Yamabe invariant of a compact manifold \(M\), also called Schoen's \(\sigma\)-constant, is defined by \(\sigma(M):=\sup\inf \int_M \mathrm{Scal}^g dv^g\), where the supremum runs over all conformal classes \([g_0]\) on \(M\) and the infimum runs over all metrics \(g\in [g_0]\) of volume \(1\). The integral \(\mathcal{E}(g):=\int_M \mathrm{Scal}^g \mathrm{d}v^g\) is the integral of the scalar curvature of \(g\) integrated with respect to the volume element \(g\) and is known as the Einstein-Hilbert functional. Let \(n=\dim M\). The authors assume that \(N\) is obtained from \(M\) by surgery of codimension \(n-k\geq 3\). That is, for a given embedding \(S^k\hookrightarrow M\), with trivial bundle, \(0\leq k\leq n-3\), a tubular neighborhood \(U_\epsilon(S^k)\) of this embedding is removed. The resulting manifold has boundary \(S^k\times S^{n-k-1}\). This boundary is glued together with the boundary of \(B^{k+1}\times S^{n-k-1}\), to obtain the closed smooth manifold \(N:=(M\setminus U_{\epsilon} (S^k))\cup _{S^k\times S^{n-k-1}}(B^{k+1}\times S^{n-k-1})\). The main result of the paper is the proof of the existence of a positive constant \(\Lambda_n\) depending only on \(n\) such that \(\sigma(N)\geq \min\{\sigma(M),\Lambda_n\}\). This formula unifies and generalizes previous results obtained by \textit{M. Gromov} and \textit{H. B. Lawson} [Ann. Math. (2) 111, 423--434 (1980; Zbl 0463.53025)], \textit{R. Schoen} and \textit{S.-T. Yau} [Manuscr. Math. 28, 159--183 (1979; Zbl 0423.53032)], \textit{O. Kobayashi} [Math. Ann. 279, No. 1--2, 253--265 (1987; Zbl 0611.53037)], and \textit{J. Petean} [J. Reine Angew. Math. 523, 225--231 (2000; Zbl 0949.53026)]. It also allows many conclusions using bordism theory.