Smooth perturbations of the functional calculus and applications to Riemannian geometry on spaces of metrics (Q2071785)

Let \(M\) be a closed manifold of dimension \(m\). The bundle of symmetric covariant two-tensors is denoted by \(S^2T^*M\) and the subbundle of positive definite tensors by \(S^2_+T^*M\). Then the space of smooth Riemannian metrics \(Met(M)\) is the space \(\Gamma(S^2_+T^*M)\) of smooth sections. The study of Riemannian metrics on the space \(Met(M)\) of all Riemannian metrics has a rich history. The canonical weak \(L^2\)-metric on the space \(Met(M)\) is defined by the formula: \[ \begin{aligned} G_g(h,k) = \int_M g(h,k)\, vol(g)= \int_M \operatorname{Tr}(g^{-1}h\cdot g^{-1}k)\, vol(g), \quad g &\in Met(M), \\ h,k &\in T_g Met(M) = S^2T^*M, \end{aligned} \] and has been studied by De Witt (1967), Ebin (1970) and many other authors. Clarke in 2010--2013 showed that the geodesic distance for the \(L^2\)-metric is a positive topological metric on \(Met(M)\) and determined that the metric completion of \(Met(M)\) contains degenerate and highly irregular metrics. This motivated the study of stronger Riemannian metrics on \(Met(M)\) of the form \[ G^P_g(h,k)=\int_M g(P_gh,k) vol(g)=\int_M \operatorname{Tr}(g^{-1}P_g(h)\cdot g^{-1}k)\, vol(g), \] where \(P_g:\Gamma(S^2T^*M) \to \Gamma(S^2T^*M)\) is a positive, symmetric, bijective pseudo-differential operator of order \(2p, p\geq 0,\) depending smoothly on the metric \(g\). This article establishes local well-posedness of the geodesic equation for a wide class of metrics on the space \(Met(M)\) of all Riemannian metrics. A simplified version, for the special case of fractional order Sobolev metrics, of main result reads as follows. On any closed manifold \(M\) and for any real number \(p\geq1\), the geodesic equation of the weak Riemannian metric \[ G_g(h,k)=\int_M \operatorname{Tr}(g^{-1} h g^{-1}(1+\Delta^g)^p k)\, vol(g), \] is locally well-posed in the sense of Hadamard. Here the Bochner Laplacian \(\Delta^g\) acts on symmetric covariant two-tensor fields and is associated to the Levi-Civita connection of the Riemannian metric \(g\). In this paper, the authors prove that the fractional Laplacians \((1+\Delta^g)^p\) depend real analytically on the metric \(g\) in the appropriate Sobolev topologies. In addition the results of this paper provide an integral step towards constructing a Riemannian metric on \(Met(M)\) such that the completion does not contain any degenerate metrics. This article is quite large and consists of six sections. The Introduction provides a good overview of the problems and results in this area. Section 2 sets up some notation and lists some external results, which are used extensively throughout the article. Section 3 establishes the real analytic dependence of the Bochner Laplacian on the Riemannian metric. Section 4 contains general result on holomorphic perturbations of the functional calculus. Section 5 applies this general result to Laplacians on closed Riemannian manifolds. Section 6 shows the local well-posedness of the geodesic equation for fractional order Sobolev metrics on the manifold of all Riemannian metrics. This paper contributes to several different fields: Riemannian geometry on spaces of metrics, well-posedness of geometric partial differential equations, and perturbative operator theory.