Stability of quadratic curvature functionals at product of Einstein manifolds

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Publication:2052882



Abstract: In this paper, we study Riemannian functionals defined by L2-norms of Ricci curvature, scalar curvature, Weyl curvature, and Riemannian curvature. We try to understand stability of their critical points that are products of Einstein metrics. In particular, we prove that the product of a spherical space form and a compact hyperbolic manifold is unstable for some quadratic functionals if the first eigenvalue of the Laplacian of the hyperbolic manifold is sufficiently small.


Let \(\left( M,g\right) \) be a smooth closed Riemannian manifold of dimension not less than 3. The authors consider critical metrics of the following Riemann functionals on \(M: \mathrm{Ric}\left( g\right) =\int_{M}\left\vert r_{g}\right\vert ^{2}dv_{g}\), and \(W_{p}\left( g\right) =\int_{M}\left\vert W\right\vert ^{p}dv_{g}\), \(p\geq2\), where \(r_{g}\) and \(W\) are the Ricci and Weyl curvatures, respectively. The authors study stability of critical metrics on \(M\) which are products of two Einstein metrics. Let \(S^{2}M\) denote the space of symmetric two tensors on \(M\). Let \(g\) be a critical metric of a Riemann functional \(F\). Then \(g\) is called stable for \(F\) if there is a constant \(c>0\) such that \(H_{F}\left( h,h\right) \geq c\left\Vert h\right\Vert ^{2}\) for all \(h\in\left\{ fg:f\in C^{\infty}M\text{ and }\int_{M}fdv_{g}=0\right\} \oplus\delta_{g}^{-1}\left( 0\right) \cap\operatorname{tr}^{-1}\left( 0\right) \), where \(H_{F}\) is the Hessian of \(F\) at \(g\), \(\left\Vert \cdot\right\Vert \) is the \(L^{2}\)-norm on \(S^{2}M\) relative to \(g\) and \(\delta_{g}\) is the divergence operator. Let \(M_{W}\) denote the space of doubly warped product metrics on \(M\). \ Let \(\left( M,g\right) \) be the product of two closed Einstein manifolds \(\left( M_{0},g_{0}\right) \) and \(\left( M_{1},g_{1}\right) \), \(\dim M_{1},\dim M_{2}\geq3\). In their Theorem 1, the authors derive necessary and sufficient conditions for stability of \(\left( M,g\right) \) for the functional \(\mathrm{Ric}\) restricted to \(M_{W}\) in terms of Einstein constants and the first eigenvalues of the Laplacian on \(M\) of \(\left( M_{0},g_{0}\right) \) and \(\left( M_{1},g_{1}\right) \). In Theorem 2, the authors establish that if each of \(\left( M_{0},g_{0}\right) \) and \(\left( M_{1},g_{1}\right) \) is stable for the functional \(\mathrm{Ric}\), then \(\left( M,g\right) \) is stable for \(\mathrm{Ric}\) if and only if it is stable for \(\mathrm{Ric}\) restricted to \(M_{W}\). In Theorem 3, the authors consider the case when \(\left( M_{0},g_{0}\right) \) is a sphere and \(\left( M_{1},g_{1}\right) \) is a compact hyperbolic manifold. Theorem 4 discusses stability of \(\left( M,g\right) \) for \(W_{\frac{n}{2}}\) when the Riemann universal cover of \(\left( M,g\right) \) is the product of \(\left( M_{0},g_{0}\right) \) and \(\left( M_{1},g_{1}\right) \), where \(\left( M_{0},g_{0}\right) \) is the \(k\)-dimensional sphere and \(\left( M_{1} ,g_{1}\right) \) is the \((n-k)\)-dimensional hyperbolic space, \(\dim\left( M\right) =n\geq6\) and \(k,n-k\geq3\). The authors conclude their paper with examples of stable and unstable critical Riemannian metrics. The paper under review was motivated by the paper by \textit{M. J. Gursky} and \textit{J. A. Viaclovsky} [J. Reine Angew. Math. 700, 37--91 (2015; Zbl 1327.53058)] and generalizes some of its results.











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