Einstein metrics on rational homology spheres (Q853494)

The authors deal with the problem of proving the existence of Einstein metrics on rational homology spheres. Previous known results concern essentially homogeneous metrics, with the only exception of some Sasakian-Einstein metrics in dimension 7, obtained by the authors and \textit{M. Nakamaye} in [Ann. Inst. Fourier 52, No. 5, 1569--1584 (2002; Zbl 1023.53029]. In this paper, the existence of continuous parameter families of Sasakian-Einstein metrics is proved on infinitely many rational homology spheres in all odd dimensions greater than three. Such simply connected rational homology spheres are obtained as links of branched covers of hypersurfaces. For some families of the metrics found, the number of effective parameters grows exponentially with dimension. In dimension five, a special study is possible, because of the known classification of simply connected spin 5-manifolds. For every index \(k> 2\), relatively prime to either 2 or 3, the existence of a two-parameters family of Sasakian-Einstein metrics on a simply connected rational homology 5-sphere \(M_k^5\) is proved, having \(\omega_2(M_k^5)=0\) and \(H_2(M_k^5,\mathbb{Z})\) of order \(k^2\).