Zero and negative eigenvalues of the conformal Laplacian (Q516573)

Let \(M\) be a compact orientable manifold of dimension \(n\geq 3\) and \(\mathcal{M}\) be the space of all smooth Riemannian metrics on \(M\). For metric \(g\in \mathcal{M}\) consider the conformal Laplacian \(Y_g = -\Delta_g+c_n R_g\), where \(c_n=(n-2)/(4(n-1))\) and \(R_g\) denotes the scalar curvature of \(g\). The main result of this paper: for generic smooth metrics \(g\in \mathcal{M}\), zero is not an eigenvalue of \(Y_g\). The authors remark that their proof of the result works verbatim to show an analogous statement for operators \(P_{g,c} = -\Delta_g+c R_g\), where \(c\in \mathbb{R}\) is any constant satisfying \(c\neq 0\); \(c\neq 1/2\). The authors show also that a sequence of metrics \(g_k\), such that the number of negative eigenvalues of \(Y_{g_k}\) increases, cannot satisfy two natural ``pre-compactness'' conditions.