On the variational stability of Kähler-Einstein metrics (Q937822)

One of the most important geometric variational problems is that of the total scalar curvature functional. An Einstein metric is called stable if the second variation of the total scalar curvature functional is non-positive in the direction of changes in conformal structures, that is, \(\langle\nabla^*\nabla h-2\overset\circ Rh,h\rangle\geq 0\) for any trace-free and divergence-free symmetric \(2\)-tensor \(h\), where \(\overset\circ Rh\) denotes the natural action of the curvature tensor on the symmetric tensors. The Lichnerowicz Laplacian \({\mathcal L}_{_g}\) is defined as \({\mathcal L}_{_g}h=\nabla^*\nabla h-2\overset\circ Rh+\text{Ric}\circ h+h\circ \text{Ric}\). The second variation functional and the Lichnerowicz Laplacian operator coincide for Ricci flat metrics. In [Invent. Math. 161, No.~1, 151--176 (2005; Zbl 1075.53042)], the authors studied stability issues for compact Ricci flat Riemannian manifolds with non-zero parallel spinors. They showed that if \((M,g)\) has a cover admitting a nontrivial parallel spinor, then the Lichnerowicz Laplacian is positive definite. In this paper, the authors use spin\(^c\) structures to generalize the previous result to manifolds with non-zero parallel spin\(^c\) spinor. Since the existence of non-zero parallel spinor implies that the metric is necessarily Ricci flat, they extend previous methods to prove that if a compact Einstein manifold \((M,g)\) with non-positive scalar curvature admits a non-zero parallel spin\(^c\) spinor, then it is stable.