No label defined (Q4510894)

Chapter 4 of Vol. I of the Handbook of Differential Geometry is an exposition of selected results concerning Einstein metrics on 4-dimensional manifolds. In the opinion of the reviewer, this chapter is an excellent introduction to the theory of Einstein manifolds, as well as to the study of 4-dimensional semi-Riemannian (i.e., pseudo-Riemannian) manifolds. This chapter is devided into four parts. Part I (Basics) contains, among others, basic material on curvature, flatness, submanifolds and conformal changes of metrics. In this part there are also presented local classification theorems for curvature-homogeneous Riemannian Einstein metrics of dimension four, as well as the following topics: Einstein hypersurfaces in pseudo-Euclidean spaces, Einstein metrics conformal to Kähler metrics or to Riemannian-product metrics, mobility for Einstein metrics and potentials for Kähler metrics. Part II (Some topological obstructions) describes various obstructions to the existence of, or nonexistence results for, Riemannian Einstein metrics on compact 4-manifolds. Among others, in this part there are presented the well-known theorems of Bochner, Berger, Lichnerowicz, Myers and Thorpe, as well as some results of Besson, Courtois, Gallot and Sambusetti. Part III (Further global results) contains brief descriptions of several important results concerning conditions necessary (or, in some cases, sufficient) for a given compact 4-manifold to admit a Riemannian Einstein metric. This study is based on some results of Aubin and Yau, Futaki, Gromov, Hitchin, LeBrun, Lichnerowicz, Matsushima, Seiberg-Witten and Thorpe. Part IV (The indefinite-metric case) deals with local properties of indefinite Einstein metrics in dimension four. The Petrov classification of curvature types for such metrics is presented. It is applied to obtain a classification of locally symmetric pseudo-Riemannian Einstein 4-manifolds. In this part there are also given brief comments on the rôle of Einstein metrics in general relativity. For the entire collection see [Zbl 1069.00010].