PONTRJAGIN FORMS AND INVARIANT OBJECTS RELATED TO THE Q-CURVATURE

DOI10.1142/S0219199707002460zbMATH Open1125.53024arXivmath/0511311OpenAlexW2064511194MaRDI QIDQ3594933FDOQ3594933

Authors: Rod Gover, Thomas Branson 

Publication date: 9 August 2007

Published in: Communications in Contemporary Mathematics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We clarify the conformal invariance of the Pontrjagin forms by giving them a manifestly conformally invariant construction; they are shown to be the Pontrjagin forms of the conformally invariant tractor connection. The Q-curvature is intimately related to the Pfaffian. Working on even-dimensional manifolds, we show how the $k$-form operators $Q_k$ of cite{ddd}, which generalise the Q-curvature, retain a key aspect of the $Q$-curvature's relation to the Pfaffian, by obstructing certain representations of natural operators on closed forms. In a closely related direction, we show that the $Q_k$ give rise to conformally invariant quadratic forms $Thet{a}_k$ on cohomology that interpolate, in a suitable sense, between the integrated metric pairing (at $k=n/2$) and the Pfaffian (at $k=0$). Using a different construction, we show that the $Q_k$ operators yield a generalisation of the period map which maps conformal structures to Lagrangian subspaces of the direct sum $H^{k}oplus{H}_k$ (where $H_k$ is the dual of the de Rham cohomology space $H^k$). We couple the $Q_k$ operators with the Pontrjagin forms to construct new natural densities that have many properties in common with the original Q-curvature; in particular these integrate to global conformal invariants. We also work out a relevant example, and show that the proof of the invariance of the (nonlinear) action functional whose critical metrics have constant Q-curvature extends to the action functionals for these new Q-like objects. Finally we set up eigenvalue problems that generalise to $Q_k$-operators the Q-curvature prescription problem.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0511311

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zbMATH Keywords

\(Q\)-curvaturePfaffianEuler formconformal differential geometryglobal geometric invariantsPontrjagin formsdifferential invariants (local)

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Partial differential equations of mathematical physics and other areas of application (35Q99) Differential invariants (local theory), geometric objects (53A55) Global Riemannian geometry, including pinching (53C20) Algebraic topology on manifolds and differential topology (57R19)

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Cited In (15)

• Conformally Invariant Operators, Differential Forms, Cohomology and a Generalisation of Q-Curvature
• A conformally invariant Yang–Mills type energy and equation on 6-manifolds
• Variational status of a class of fully nonlinear curvature prescription problems
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