Stability of quadratic curvature functionals at product of Einstein manifolds (Q2052882)

Let \(\left( M,g\right) \) be a smooth closed Riemannian manifold of dimension not less than 3. The authors consider critical metrics of the following Riemann functionals on \(M: \mathrm{Ric}\left( g\right) =\int_{M}\left\vert r_{g}\right\vert ^{2}dv_{g}\), and \(W_{p}\left( g\right) =\int_{M}\left\vert W\right\vert ^{p}dv_{g}\), \(p\geq2\), where \(r_{g}\) and \(W\) are the Ricci and Weyl curvatures, respectively. The authors study stability of critical metrics on \(M\) which are products of two Einstein metrics. Let \(S^{2}M\) denote the space of symmetric two tensors on \(M\). Let \(g\) be a critical metric of a Riemann functional \(F\). Then \(g\) is called stable for \(F\) if there is a constant \(c>0\) such that \(H_{F}\left( h,h\right) \geq c\left\Vert h\right\Vert ^{2}\) for all \(h\in\left\{ fg:f\in C^{\infty}M\text{ and }\int_{M}fdv_{g}=0\right\} \oplus\delta_{g}^{-1}\left( 0\right) \cap\operatorname{tr}^{-1}\left( 0\right) \), where \(H_{F}\) is the Hessian of \(F\) at \(g\), \(\left\Vert \cdot\right\Vert \) is the \(L^{2}\)-norm on \(S^{2}M\) relative to \(g\) and \(\delta_{g}\) is the divergence operator. Let \(M_{W}\) denote the space of doubly warped product metrics on \(M\). \ Let \(\left( M,g\right) \) be the product of two closed Einstein manifolds \(\left( M_{0},g_{0}\right) \) and \(\left( M_{1},g_{1}\right) \), \(\dim M_{1},\dim M_{2}\geq3\). In their Theorem 1, the authors derive necessary and sufficient conditions for stability of \(\left( M,g\right) \) for the functional \(\mathrm{Ric}\) restricted to \(M_{W}\) in terms of Einstein constants and the first eigenvalues of the Laplacian on \(M\) of \(\left( M_{0},g_{0}\right) \) and \(\left( M_{1},g_{1}\right) \). In Theorem 2, the authors establish that if each of \(\left( M_{0},g_{0}\right) \) and \(\left( M_{1},g_{1}\right) \) is stable for the functional \(\mathrm{Ric}\), then \(\left( M,g\right) \) is stable for \(\mathrm{Ric}\) if and only if it is stable for \(\mathrm{Ric}\) restricted to \(M_{W}\). In Theorem 3, the authors consider the case when \(\left( M_{0},g_{0}\right) \) is a sphere and \(\left( M_{1},g_{1}\right) \) is a compact hyperbolic manifold. Theorem 4 discusses stability of \(\left( M,g\right) \) for \(W_{\frac{n}{2}}\) when the Riemann universal cover of \(\left( M,g\right) \) is the product of \(\left( M_{0},g_{0}\right) \) and \(\left( M_{1},g_{1}\right) \), where \(\left( M_{0},g_{0}\right) \) is the \(k\)-dimensional sphere and \(\left( M_{1} ,g_{1}\right) \) is the \((n-k)\)-dimensional hyperbolic space, \(\dim\left( M\right) =n\geq6\) and \(k,n-k\geq3\). The authors conclude their paper with examples of stable and unstable critical Riemannian metrics. The paper under review was motivated by the paper by \textit{M. J. Gursky} and \textit{J. A. Viaclovsky} [J. Reine Angew. Math. 700, 37--91 (2015; Zbl 1327.53058)] and generalizes some of its results.