Surgery and equivariant Yamabe invariant (Q2490926)

Let \(G\) be a compact Lie group, \((M,g)\) an \(n\)-dimensional compact Riemannian \(G\)-manifold and denote by \([g]_G\) the set of \(G\)-invariant metrics conformal to \(g\). The \(G\)-Yamabe invariant \(Y_G(M)\) of \(M\) is defined as the supremum of all the \(G\)-Yamabe constants \(Y(M,[g]_G)\), where \(Y(M,[g]_G)=\inf_{g'\in[g]_G} (\int_M s_{g'}dV_{g'})(\int_MdV_{g'})^{\frac{n}{n-2}}\), and \(s_{g'},dV_{g'}\) respectively denote the scalar curvature and the volume element of \(g'\). The author proves a surgery theorem for the \(G\)-Yamabe invariant. More precisely, he considers a compact Lie group \(G\) acting on two compact \(n\)-dimensional manifolds \(M_1,M_2\), \(n\geq 3\). Let \(W\) be an \(n-q\)-dimensional manifold with a locally transitive \(G\)-action. Assume that \(W\) embeds into both \(M_1\) and \(M_2\) with an equivariant \(G\)-action on the trivial normal bundle and consider a \(G\)-manifold \(M\) obtained by equivariantly gluing \(M_1\) and \(M_2\) along \(W\). Then \(Y_G (M)\) is limited from below by a real number depending on the invariants \(Y_G(M_i)\), \(i\in\{1,2\}\). In particular, one considers an isometric \(G\)-action on the unit \(n\)-sphere \(S^n\subset \mathbb R^{n+1}\), with \(G= \text{SO}(n-q+ 1)\), \(n,q\geq 3\), which fixes the last \(q\) coordinates on \(\mathbb R^{n+1}\). Taking two copies of \(S^n\) and performing a surgery along \(S^{n-q}\) one gets the \(G\)-manifold \(S^{n-q+1} \times S^{q-1}\). The previous theorem implies that \(Y_G(S^{n-q+1}\times S^{q-1})\) is just the (classical) Yamabe invariant of \(S^n\).