A strong maximum principle for the Paneitz operator and a non-local flow for the \(\mathcal Q\)-curvature (Q747605)

In this paper, the authors consider Riemannian manifolds \((M^n,g)\) of dimension \(n\geq 5\) with semi-positive \(\mathcal Q\)-curvature and non-negative scalar curvature. Under these assumptions they prove: (i) the Paneitz operator satisfies a strong maximum principle; (ii) the Paneitz operator is a positive operator; (iii) its Green's function is strictly positive. Let A denote the Schoten tensor \[ A=\frac{1}{n-2}\Big(\text{Ric}-\frac{1}{2(n-1)}Rg\Big), \] where \(\mathrm{Ric}\) is the Ricci tensor and \(R\) the scalar curvature. Let \(\sigma_{k}(A)\) denote the \(k^{th}\) symmetric function of the eigenvalue of \(A\). Then, the \(\mathcal Q\)-curvature of Branson is defined by \[ \mathcal Q=-\Delta\sigma_1(A)+4\sigma_2(A)+\frac{n-1}{2}\sigma_1(A)^2, \] and the eponymous operator of Paneitz is \[ P_{g}u=\Delta_{g}^2 u+\text{div}_{g}{(4A_{g}-(n-2)\sigma_1(A_{g})g)(\triangledown u,\cdot)}+\frac{n-4}{2} \mathcal Q_{g}u. \] The formula connecting \(P\) and \(\mathcal Q\) is the following: if \(n\neq 4 \), suppose \(g=u^{4/(n-4)}g\) is a conformal metric; then the \(\mathcal Q\)-curvature of \(g\) is given by \[ \mathcal Q_{g}=\frac{2}{n-4}u^{-\frac{n+4}{n-4}}P_{g}u. \tag{1} \] When the dimension is four, one writes \(g=e^{2w}g\), and \[ \mathcal Q_{g}=e^{-4w}(-\frac12P_{g}w+Q_{g}). \] Now, if \(n \neq 4\), the Yamabe problem: given \((M^n,g)\), find a conformal metric of constant \(\mathcal Q\)-curvature, is equivalent to finding a positive solution of \[ P_{g}u=\lambda u^{\frac{n+4}{n-4}}, \tag{2} \] where \(\lambda\) is a constant. The authors interest is dimension \(n \geq 5\), where the lack of maximum principle is a major problem when we are looking for positive solutions of (1). On the other hand, the existence theory is far less developed. The purpose of this paper is to prove a maximum principle and the existence of the solutions of (2) under considerably weaker positivity assumptions. the conditions considered are the following: {\parindent=6mm \begin{itemize} \item[-] \(Q_{g}\) is semi-positive; \item [-] the scalar curvature \(R_{g}\) is non-negative. \end{itemize}}