Conformally prescribed scalar curvature on orbifolds (Q2687031)

In the fundational paper written by \textit{J. L. Kazdan} and \textit{F. W. Warner} [J. Differ. Geom. 10, 113--134 (1975; Zbl 0296.53037)] the so-called prescribed scalar curvature problem on a manifold was introduced. It can be stated as finding a Riemannian metric whose scalar curvature is a given function. Authors proved that the problem has a positive answer if the manifold is compact and has dimension \(\geq 3\) and the given function takes on a negative value somewhere. As is well known, not all manifolds admit metrics which have strictly positive scalar curvature, but they also proved that if the manifold does admit some metric with strictly positive scalar curvature, then any smooth function is the scalar curvature of some Riemannian metric. Another related problem is the so-called Yamabe problem, whose statement is as follows: given a compact Riemannian manifold \((M,g)\), is there always a function \(f\) such that the metric \(fg\) has constant scalar curvature? The answer is also positive, but the definitive proof was obtained in the eighty's, more than twenty years after the first work of Yamabe. One can re-write the problem saying that one must find a metric \(fg\), i.e., in the conformal class of \(g\), having constant scalar curvature. The paper under review is about the prescribed scalar curvature problem in a conformal class on Riemannian orbifolds with isolated singularities. Roughly speaking, such a Riemannian orbifold is a topological space which is a Riemannian manifold away from a finite set of points, having each of these points a neighborhood and a subgroup of the orthogonal group acting freely on it. The main result of the paper states that the Yamabe problem has a solution in the case of compact Riemannian 4-dimensional orbifolds with positive scalar curvature. The paper is very technical and the proofs require sophisticated ideas, because, as the authors themselves write, this problem is more subtle than the manifold case.