Prescribing scalar curvatures: non compactness versus critical points at infinity (Q1989252)

This paper deals with a topic in flow analysis in the abstract setting of Riemannian manifolds. The author provides an example of a positive function on a Riemannian manifold that is conformally prescribed as the scalar curvature and such that the corresponding Yamabe-type \(L^2\)-gradient flow exhibits noncompact flow lines, while a slight modification of it is compact. The arguments combine methods from conformal geometry and critical point theory at infinity.