Paneitz operator for metrics near \(S^{3}\) (Q2406070)

The Paneitz operator of a Riemannian manifold is a fourth-order operator whose definition involves the Q-curvature equation, and has important applications to conformal geometry. In the article under review, the authors focus on the Paneitz operator of the standard metric on the three-dimensional sphere. More precisely, they study the Green's function pole's value associated to the Paneitz operator of metrics on the three-sphere which are near the standard one. They show that the first variation vanishes, and that the second variation is nonpositively definite and vanishes only at the direction of conformal deformation. Furthermore, they introduce a new invariant \(\nu\) associated to the Paneitz operator, which is a real number related with the second eigenvalue and Sobolev inequality of the Paneitz operator. The main results are contained in Section 1. Section 2 introduces a technique to simplify various computations. The first and second variation formulas are computed in Section 3, while Section 4 discusses the invariant \(\nu\). Finally, the appendix contains several computations.