The Nirenberg problem of prescribed Gauss curvature on \(S^2\) (Q2039535)

What functions \(K\) can be the Gaussian curvature of a metric \(g\) on \(S^2\) which is pointwise conformal to the standard round metric \(g_{+1}\) of radius 1 on \(S^{2}\subset \mathbb{R}^{3}\)? This paper gives new proofs of most previous results on this question and derives new existence and non-existence results by considering as a smooth (nonlinear) Fredholm map of Fredholm index \(0\) the map \(\pi\) from the space of smooth conformal factors for metrics pointwise conformal to \(g_{+1}\) to the space of Gauss curvatures of these metrics. In particular, \(\pi: C^{m,\alpha}(S^{2}:\mathbb{R})\to C^{m-2,\alpha}_{+}(S^{2}:\mathbb{R})\) is given by \(\pi(u)=K_{g}\), where \(u\in C^{m,\alpha}(S^{2}:\mathbb{R})\), \(g=e^{2u}g_{+1}\) and \(K_{g}\) is the Gauss curvature of \(g;\) here \(m\ge 4\), \(\alpha\in (0,1)\) and \(C^{m-2,\alpha}_{+}(S^{2}:\mathbb{R})\) is the space of functions \(K\in C^{m-2,\alpha}(S^{2}:\mathbb{R})\) such that \(K(x)>0\) for some \(x\in S^{2}\). A principal result of this paper is to show that on a domain \(\mathcal{U}\subset C^{m,\alpha}(S^{2}:\mathbb{R})\), the curvature map \(\pi_{0}:\mathcal{U}\to \mathcal{K}\) is a proper Fredholm map of index \(0\), where \(\mathcal{K}=\mathcal{C}\cap\mathcal{N}\), \(\mathcal{U}=\pi^{-1}(\mathcal{K})\), \(\mathcal{C}\) and \(\mathcal{N}\) are open, dense subsets of \(C^{m-2,\alpha}_{+}(S^{2}:\mathbb{R})\), \(\mathcal{C}\) is associated with the behavior of functions \(K\in C^{m-2,\alpha}_{+}(S^{2}:\mathbb{R})\) near their zero level sets and \(\mathcal{N}\) contains the strictly positive functions \(K\in C^{m-2,\alpha}_{+}(S^{2}:\mathbb{R})\) which are in the space of non-degenerate functions as defined in references [\textit{S.-Y. A. Chang} and \textit{P. C. Yang}, Duke Math. J. 64, No. 1, 27--69 (1991; Zbl 0739.53027); \textit{S.-Y. A. Chang} et al., Calc. Var. Partial Differ. Equ. 1, No. 2, 205--229 (1993; Zbl 0822.35043)]. This result gives \textit{a priori} estimates for solutions \(u\) of \(e^{2u}K=1-\Delta u\) for all \(K=\pi(u)\in \mathcal{K}\). The paper goes on to prove that the complement \(C^{m-2,\alpha}_{+}(S^{2}:\mathbb{R})\setminus \mathcal{K}\) of \(\mathcal{K}\) is a closed, rectifiable set of codimension one in \(C^{m-2,\alpha}_{+}(S^{2}:\mathbb{R})\), to analyse the path components of \(\mathcal{K}\), to obtain new existence results (e.g. Theorem 1.6) and to prove \textbf{Theorem 1.4}: The set \(\Sigma\) of singular points of \(\pi\) is a stratified space with strata of codimension \(s\ge 1\) in \(C^{m,\alpha}(S^{2}:\mathbb{R})\). In particular, the regular points and regular values of \(\pi\) are open and dense in the domain and range of \(\pi\).