Compact almost Ricci solitons with constant scalar curvature are gradient (Q2449428)

An almost Ricci soliton is a Riemannian manifold \((M^n,g)\) admitting a complete vector field \(X\) and a smooth function \(\lambda\) such that the Ricci tensor \(\rho\) satisfies \[ \rho+{1\over 2} L_X g=\lambda g.\tag{1} \] If \((M^n,g,X,\lambda)\) is a compact almost Ricci soliton, by the Hodge-de Rham decomposition theorem, there exist a smooth function \(h\) and a vector field \(Y\) such that \[ X= \operatorname{grad }h+ Y,\quad \operatorname{div}U= 0.\tag{2} \] If \(Y=0\), then \(M^n\) is called a gradient almost Ricci soliton. In [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 140, No. 3, 1033--1040 (2012; Zbl 1245.53044)] the authors proved that a compact gradient almost Ricci soliton such that \(X\) is a non-trivial conformal vector field is isometric to a Euclidean sphere. They also stated an integral formula that implies several rigidity results. In this paper the authors state a generalization to the integral formulae given in [loc. cit.] for the gradient case. More precisely, denoting by \(s\) the scalar curvature of a compact oriented almost Ricci soliton \((M^n,g,X,\lambda)\), one has: \[ \int_M \Big|\rho-{s\over n} g\Big|^2\, dv_g= {n-2\over 2n} \int_M g(\text{grad\,}s, X)\,dv_g= {n-2\over 2n} \int_M g(\text{grad\,}s, \text{grad\,}h)\,dv_g. \] Several consequences are obtained. In particular, if \(n\geq 3\), then \(s\) is constant if and only if \(M^n\) is isometric to a Euclidean sphere. Moreover, if \(s\) is constant or \(X\) is a conformal vector field, then the vector filed \(Y\) occurring in (2) is Killing.