Sharp Sobolev inequalities involving boundary terms revisited (Q2048875)

It is known that there is a constant \(S\) such that \[ S^{-1} = \inf \biggl\{ \frac{\| \nabla u \|^2_{L^2(\mathbb R^n)} } { \| u \|^2_{L^{2^*}(\mathbb R^n)} } : u \in L^{2^*}(\mathbb R^n) \setminus \{ 0 \} ,\ |\nabla u | \in L^2(\mathbb R^n) \biggr\} \] and the extremals are known. The authors study similar Sobolev inequalities on compact Riemannian manifolds. Let \((M, g)\) be a smooth compact \(n\)-dimensional Riemannian manifold with smooth boundary \(\partial M\) and \(n \geq 3\), \(2^*= 2n/(n - 2)\). If the manifold \((M, g)\) supports the inequality \[ \Bigl(\int_M |u|^{2*} dv_g \Bigr)^{{2}/{2^*} } \leq 2^{\frac2n}S \int_M |\nabla_g u |^2 dv_g \] for any \(u \in H^1_0 (M)\setminus \{ 0 \}\), \textit{Y. Y. Li} and \textit{M. Zhu} [Geom. Funct. Anal. 8, No.~1, 59--87 (1998; Zbl 0901.58066)] proved that there exists a constant \(A(M, g) > 0\) such that \[ \Bigl(\int_M |u|^{2*} dv_g \Bigr)^{{2}/{2^*} } \leq 2^{\frac2n}S \int_M |\nabla_g u |^2 dv_g + A(M,g) \int_{\partial M} |u|^2 d s_g. \] where \(dv_g\) is the induced volume form on \(M\) and \(ds_g\) is the induced volume form on \(\partial M\). They also proved that the first inequality is necessary for the second. If the inequality is not supported, Li and Zhu [loc.\,cit.]\ proved that \[ \Bigl(\int_M |u|^{2*} dv_g \Bigr)^{{2}/{2^*} }) \leq 2^{\frac2n}S \int_M |\nabla_g u |^2 dv_g + A^{\prime}(M,g) \Bigl( \int_{M} |u|^2 d v_g + \int_{\partial M} |u|^2 d s_g \Bigr). \] The authors extend this by giving a version involving the mean curvature of the manifold. Suppose \((M, g)\) is a smooth compact \(n\)-dimensional Riemannian manifold with \(n \geq 7\) which supports the inequality \[ \Bigl(\int_M |u|^{2*} dv_g \Bigr)^{{2}/{2^*} } \leq 2^{\frac2n}S \int_M |\nabla_g u |^2 dv_g ; \] then there is a constant \(A_1(M,g) >0\) such that \[ \Bigl(\int_M |u|^{2*} dv_g \Bigr)^{{2}/{2^*} } \leq 2^{2/n}S \Bigl(\int_M |\nabla_g u |^2 dv_g + \frac{n - 2}{2} \int_{\partial M} h_g |u|^2 d s_g \Bigr) + A_1 \| u \|^2_{L^r(\partial M)}, \] for \(u \in H^1(M)\), where \(h_g\) is the mean curvature of \(\partial M\) and \(r = \frac{2(n - 1)}{n}\). If the inequality is not supported, the inequality still holds but with two final terms, the squares of the \(L^r\) norm over \(\partial M\) and the square of the \(L^{r_1}\) norm over \(M\), where \( r_1 = \frac{n}{n + 2}\). I refer to the paper for the precise form. The constants are sharp as before and in addition \(h_g\) cannot be replaced by any function that is strictly less than \(h_g\) at any point of \(\partial M\), nor can the exponents in the \(L^r\) norms be replaced by any smaller number.