A gap theorem for positive Einstein metrics on the four-sphere (Q2419960)

The aim of this paper is to show that there exists a universal positive constant \(\varepsilon_0>0\) with the following property: If \(g\) is a positive Einstein metric on the four-sphere \(S^4\) with Yamabe constant \[ Y(S^4,[g])>\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}Y(S^4,[g_\mathbb{S}])-\varepsilon_0, \] then, up to rescaling, \(g\) is isometric to \(g_\mathbb{S}\). Here, \([g\)] denotes the conformal class of \(g\) and \(g_\mathbb{S}\) denotes the standard round metric on \(S^4\). This is an extension of \textit{M. J. Gursky}'s gap theorem [Math. Ann. 318, No. 3, 417--431 (2000; Zbl 1034.53032)] for positive Einstein metrics on \(S^4\). This paper is organized as follows. The first section is an introduction to the subject and summarizes the main results. In the second section the authors present some preliminaries, review of the definitions of Yamabe constants and Yamabe metrics and prove some theorems. The third section deals with a review of two key results concerning an embedding theorem and convergence of Einstein metrics. These theorems result from a crucial proposition that is proved in Section 4.