No label defined (Q3837871)

In [J. Funct. Anal. 80, 148-211 (1988; Zbl 0653.53022)], \textit{B.~Osgood, R.~Phillips} and \textit{P.~Sarnak} studied the zeta-function regularized determinant of the Laplacian on a compact Riemann surface as a functional on the space of all Riemannian metrics within a conformal class. They showed that the unique maximum is attained at the metric of constant Gauss curvature. In the present article, this approach is generalized to Kähler metrics on higher dimensional complex manifolds. The authors consider two closely related functionals on the space of Kähler metrics within a fixed Kähler class: the holomorphic Ray-Singer torsion and the Quillen norm of a fixed element of the determinant line of the Dolbeault cohomology. The behaviour of these functionals under variations of the metric follows from anomaly formulas of \textit{J.-M.~Bismut, H.~Gillet} and \textit{C.~Soulé} [Commun. Math. Phys. 115, 301-351 (1988; Zbl 0651.32017)]. On some special complex surfaces, a necessary condition is given for a metric to be critical with respect to the Ray-Singer torsion. The Quillen metric is shown to be critical on manifolds of constant holomorphic curvature. On algebraic manifolds, the Quillen metric on the determinant of a certain twisted cohomology becomes critical precisely for Kähler metrics of constant scalar curvature. For the entire collection see [Zbl 0881.00018].