About pseudo-Riemannian Lichnerowicz conjecture (Q897146)

A (pseudo-)Riemannian manifold \((M,g)\) is said to have essential conformal group if there are no (pseudo-)Riemannian metrics conformal to \(g\) with respect to which \(\mathrm{Conf}(M,g)\) acts isometrically. It is a classical result obtained independently by \textit{M. Obata} [J. Differ. Geom. 6, 247--258 (1971; Zbl 0236.53042)] and \textit{J. Lelong-Ferrand} [Mem. Cl. Sci., Collect. Octavo, Acad. R. Belg. 39, No. 5, 3--44 (1971; Zbl 0215.50902)] that the only closed Riemannian manifold with essential conformal group is the round sphere, confirming a conjecture of Lichnerowicz. \textit{G. D'Ambra} and \textit{M. Gromov} [Surv. Differ. Geom., Suppl. J. Diff. Geom. 1, 19--111 (1991; Zbl 0752.57017)] asked whether the same conjecture of Lichnerowicz holds in the pseudo-Riemannian realm. More precisely, the statement of the ``pseudo-Riemannian Lichnerowicz conjecture'' is that a closed pseudo-Riemannian manifold with essential conformal group is conformally flat. This short and well-written note constructs counter-examples to this conjecture on \(S^1\times S^{n-1}\) with metrics of all signatures \(\geq 2\), leaving only the Lorentzian case unsettled.