\(r\)-stable spacelike hypersurfaces in conformally stationary spacetimes (Q655528)

The notion of stability concerning hypersurfaces of constant mean curvature of Riemannian ambient spaces was first studied by \textit{J.~L.~Barbosa} and \textit{M.~P.~do Carmo} in [``Stability of hypersurfaces with constant mean curvature'', Math. Z. 185, 339--353 (1984; Zbl 0513.53002)], where they proved that spheres are the only stable critical points of the area functional for volume-preserving variations. \textit{J.~L.~M. Barbosa} and \textit{V.~Oliker} [``Spacelike hypersurfaces with constant mean curvature in Lorentz space'', Mat. Contemp. 4, 27--44 (1993; Zbl 0852.53045)] obtained an analogous result, proving that constant mean curvature space-like hypersurfaces in Lorentz manifolds are also critical points of the area functional for variations that keep the volume constant. They also computed the second variation formula and showed that spheres maximize the area functional for volume-preserving variations for the de Sitter space \(\mathbf S^{n+1}_1\). \textit{X.~Liu} and \textit{J.~Deng} [``Stable space-like hypersurfaces in the de Sitter space'', Arch. Math., Brno 40, No.~2, 111--117 (2004; Zbl 1114.53057)] characterized the \(r\)-stable closed space-like hypersurfaces with constant scalar curvature in the de Sitter space. In [``On the \(r\)-stability of space-like hypersurfaces'', J. Geom. Phys. 60, No.~10, 1402--1410 (2010; Zbl 1197.53074)], \textit{F.~Camargo}, \textit{A.~Caminha}, \textit{M.~da Silva} and \textit{H.~de Lima} studied the problem of stability with respect to not necessarily volume-preserving variations for space-like hypersurfaces with constant \(r\)-th mean curvature in a generalized Robertson-Walker space-time of constant sectional curvature, giving a characterization of \(r\)-maximal and space-like slices. In this paper, the authors consider closed space-like hypersurfaces with constant \(r\)-th mean curvature in a wider class of Lorentz manifolds, the so-called conformally stationary space-times, in order to obtain a relation between \(r\)-stability and the spectrum of a certain elliptic operator naturally attached to the \(r\)-th mean curvature of the hypersurfaces. The authors use the Newton transformations \(P_r\) and their associated second-order differential operators \(L_r\). They prove that if \(\widetilde M^{n+1}_c\) is a conformally stationary Lorentz manifold with constant curvature \(c\) that has a closed conformal vector field \(V\) and a Killing vector field \(W\) and if \(x: M^n\to\widetilde M^{n+1}_c\) is a closed space-like hypersurface with constant positive \((r+1)\)-th mean curvature \(H_{r+1}\) such that \[ \lambda=c(n-r)\binom{n}{r}H_r-nH_1\binom{n}{r+1}H_{r+1}+(r+2)\binom{n}{r+2}H_{r+2} \] is constant, then \(x\) is \(r\)-stable if and only if \(\lambda\) is the first eigenvalue of \(L_r\) on \(M^n\).