Some properties of the Schouten tensor and applications to conformal geometry (Q4787445)

The Schouten tensor of a Riemannian manifold \((M^n,g)\), \(n \geq 3\), is \(A_g={1\over n-2}(Ric-{1\over 2(n-1)}Rg)\). Let \(\sigma_k\) denote the \(k\)th elementary symmetric function of its eigenvalues. It is said that \(g\) has positive (resp. nonnegative) \(\Gamma_k\)-curvature at \(x\in M\) if its Schouten tensor belongs to \(\Gamma^+_k\)= ``component of \(\{\sigma_k >0\}\) containing \((1, \dots,1)\)'' (resp. to \(\overline\Gamma^+_k\), the closure). It is proved that if \(g\) has positive (resp. nonnegative) \(\Gamma_k\)-curvature at \(x\) for some \(k\geq n/2\), then its Ricci curvature is positive (resp. nonnegative) at \(x\). Moreover, if the \(\Gamma_k\)-curvature is nonnegative for some \(k>1\), then \[ Ric_g\geq{2k-n \over 2n(k-1)} R_g\cdot g. \] In particular, if \(k\geq n/2\), then \[ Ric_g\geq {(2k-n)(n-1)\over (k-1)}{n\choose k}^{-{1\over k}} \sigma_k^{1\over k}(A_g) \cdot g. \] As a corollary this implies that if \((M^n,g)\) is a compact, locally conformally flat manifold with \(g\in\Gamma^+_k\), \(k\geq n/2\), then \((M,g)\) is conformally equivalent to a spherical space form. For this case some applications are considered, in particular, to extremal metrics of \(\sigma_k\)-curvature functionals and quermassintegral inequalities.