Conformal entropy rigidity through Yamabe flows (Q425155)

It is well-known that geometric flows are powerful tools when dealing with geometric problems. In this paper, the authors present variations of the Yamabe flow and use them to investigate the asymptotic geometry of the underlying manifold. For this purpose, they introduce two versions of the Yamabe flow which preserve negative scalar-curvature bounds. Firstly, they show existence and smooth convergence of solutions to these flows. Secondly, they show that a metric with negative scalar curvature is controlled by the Yamabe metrics in the same conformal class with constant extremal scalar curvatures, which implies that the volume entropy of their original metric is controlled by the entropies of these Yamabe metrics. In addition, the authors also give several geometric applications of the useful Schwarz lemma together with the curvature-normalized Yamabe flows, and pay special attention to what they imply on the entropy of the Riemannian manifold. Finally, the authors eventually use these Yamabe flows to prove an entropy-rigidity result: if the Yamabe metric has negative sectional curvature, the entropy of a metric in the same conformal class is extremal if and only if the metric has constant extremal scalar curvature. I think the approach and technique in this paper are important and interesting. It will set the stage for future study in this direction.