Sharp Sobolev inequalities on the sphere and the Moser-Trudinger inequality (Q690125)

The principal results contained here include: (1) extension to higher dimensions of the sharp Moser-Trudinger inequality due to Onofri for the 2-sphere, (2) conformal invariance of the higher-dimensional inequality and characterization of extremal functions in terms of conformal factors, (3) equivalence with sharp entropy estimates for a logarithmic fractional integral corresponding to the Green's function for higher-order elliptic operators, (4) application to the geometric variational problem of determining extremal values for the functional determinant of the conformal Laplacian on the 4-sphere under a conformal deformation with fixed volume, and (5) extension of the classical Sobolev inequalities on the sphere to a one-parameter family of higher-order Sobolev inequalities.