Convergence of the Yamabe flow on singular spaces with positive Yamabe constant (Q6187440)

The authors study the convergence of the normalized Yamabe flow with positive Yamabe constant on a general class of spaces that include incomplete spaces with cone-edge singularities or, more generally, stratified spaces with iterated cone-edge singularities. Theorem 2.9 and Proposition 3.6 state general existence, for all time, for the Yamabe flow in certain settings. More precisely, they combine to say that the Yamabe flow has a unique solution \(u \in C^{\infty}((0,T),H^{2,p}(M))\) and that the maximal flow time is \(T=\infty\) on a smooth Riemannian manifold \((M,g_0)\) of dimension \(n\), that satisfies following conditions: \begin{enumerate} \item[(1)] \(M\) is the regular part of a compact, metric measure space \(\bar{M}\). \item[(2)] Smooth, compactly supported functions \(C^{\infty}_c(M)\) are dense in \(H^1(M)\). \item[(3)] The Hausdorff \(n\)-dimensional measure is absolutely continuous with respect to \(d\mu\), and both are Ahlfors n-regular, this is, \[ C^{-1}R^n \leq Vol(B(p,R))\leq C R^n\] for some \(C>0\) and every \(p \in \bar M\) and \(2R< diam(\bar M):=\sup\{d(p,q): p,q \in \bar M\}\). \item[(4)] \((M,g_0)\) admits a Sobolev inequality of the following kind. There exist \(A_0, B_0>0\) such that for all \(f \in H^1(M)\) \[ \|f\|^2_{L^{\frac{2n}{n-2}}(M)} \leq A_0\|\nabla f\|^2_{L^2(M)}+B_0\| f\|^2_{L^2(M)}.\] \item[(5)] The scalar curvature of \(g_0\) satisfies \(\|S_0\|_{L^q(M)}<\infty\) for some \(q>\frac{n}{2}\). \item[(6)] The Yamabe constant \(Y(M,g_0)\) is positive. \end{enumerate} Mentioned examples of manifolds that satisfy (1) to (5) are closed manifolds and regular parts of smoothly stratified spaces, endowed with iterated cone-edge metrics. The main convergence result of the article is Theorem 4.9 and describes what can happen to sequences of functions \(u(t_k)\) as \(t_k\rightarrow \infty\). It mainly states that there is a dichotomy: either subsequences converge or the volume concentrates at finitely many points, which leads to the so called formation of bubbles. A detailed and general description of these bubbles is given in Appendix A. Another interesting result of the article, presented in Proposition 4.17, states that given a non-trivial upper bound on the initial scalar curvature, the Yamabe flow has convergent subsequences and yields a constant scalar curvature metric. A subsequent result, Proposition 5.1, gives a criterion, in terms of the first eigenvalue of the Laplacian, for when the entire flow converges, instead of just some of its subsequences. Towards the end of the article, an explicit computation, of a non-convergent example due to \textit{J. A. Viaclovsky} [Ann. Inst. Fourier 60, No. 7, 2503--2543 (2010; Zbl 1227.53060)], is described. Namely (a conformal compactification of) the Eguchi-Hanson space; which shows that the Yamabe flow does not always have convergent subsequences.