Some results on four-manifolds with nonnegative biorthogonal curvature (Q6187034)

In the 1960s, Berger initiated the project of classing Einstein four-manifold with ``positive curvature''. He proved that an oriented Einstein four-manifold with striclty \(1/4\)-pinched sectional curvature must be \(S^4\), up to scaling. A significant result by D. Yang asserts that an oriented Einstein four-manifold (normalized so that \(\text{Ric}=1\)) with sectional curvature \(K \geq \frac{\sqrt{1249}-23}{40} \approx 0.308529\) must be either \(S^4\) or \(CP^2\). Yang's argument was refined by several groups (Costa, X. Cao and P. Wu, Ribeiro, X. Cao and Tran, etc.), with the best result assuming only \(K\geq \frac{1}{12}\). This paper proves two classification theorems for oriented compact four-manifolds with nonnegative biorthogonal sectional curvature: one assuming harmonic Weyl tensor and either \(\det W^-\) or \(|W^-|\) is constant, the other one assuming constant scalar curvature and constant \(|W^-|\). The key idea is to utilize the Bochner-Weitzenböck formulas for \(|W^\pm|\) and for two-forms, together with some algebraic estimates and the Gauss-Bonnett-Chern formula.