The Gauss-Bonnet-Chern mass for graphic manifolds (Q2450917)

The ADM mass \(m_1\) was introduced in [\textit{R. Arnowitt} et al., Phys. Rev., II. Ser. 122, 997--1006 (1961; Zbl 0094.23003)] for a complete asymptotically flat Riemannian manifold \((M^n,g)\). The positive mass theorem (stating that \(m_1\geq0\) on any asymptotically flat manifold with order \(>\frac12(n-2))\) and the Penrose inequality (giving the lower bound for \(m_1\) in terms of the area of the horizon) are two important results in differential geometry and general relativity. The new mass \(m_2\) has been introduced by \textit{Y. Ge, G. Wang} and \textit{J. Wu} [``A new mass for asymptotically flat manifolds'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1211.3645}], using the tensor \(P^{ijkl}=R^{ijkl}+P^{jk}g^{il}-P^{jl}g^{ik}-P^{ik}g^{jl}+P^{il}g^{jk} +\frac12R(g^{ik}g^{jl}-g^{il}g^{jk})\); they asked the following question: Is \(m_2\) nonnegative when the Gauss Bonnet curvature \(L_2=P^{ijkl}R_{ijkl}\) is nonnegative? The answer is affirmative for codimension-one graphic manifolds and for conformally flat manifolds. The authors prove a positive mass theorem and a Penrose-type inequality of the mass \(m_2\) for graphic manifolds of arbitrary codimension with flat normal bundle.