arXiv research

Survey on CR Paneitz operator and manifold embeddability.

CR Paneitz operator on non-embeddable tori has infinitely many negative eigenvalues

Study on CR Paneitz operator on non-embeddable CR manifolds.

We derive the first and second variation formula for the Green's function pole's value of Paneitz operator on the standard three sphere. In particular it is shown that the first variation vanishes and the second variation is nonpositively definite. Moreover, the second variation vanishes only at the direction of confor…

For CR structures in dimension three, the CR pluriharmonic functions are characterized by the vanishing of a third order operator. This third order operator, after composition with the divergence operator, gives the fourth order analogue of the Paneitz operator. In this short note, we give criteria under which the kern…

We describe a set of conformally covariant boundary operators associated to the Paneitz operator, in the sense that they give rise to a conformally covariant energy functional for the Paneitz operator on a compact Riemannian manifold with boundary. These operators naturally give rise to a first- and third-order conform…

We study first and second order conformal symmetries of the Yamabe Laplacian on a general pseudo-Riemannian manifold and of the Paneitz operator on Einstein spaces. We show that first order conformal symmetries of the Yamabe operator induce second order conformal symmetries. We show that on an Einstein space every conf…

New operators and curvatures derived from embedded manifolds.

For $n\geq 7$, we give the optimal estimate for the second eigenvalue of Paneitz operators for compact $n$-dimensional submanifolds in an $(n+p)$-dimensional space form.

Explicit formulas for extrinsic Paneitz operators and Q-curvatures for totally umbilic hypersurfaces.

For an $n$-dimensional compact submanifold $M^n$ in the Euclidean space $\mathbf R^{N}$, we study estimates for eigenvalues of the Paneitz operator on $M^n$. Our estimates for eigenvalues are sharp.

In this paper, we study some fourth order singular critical equations of Lichnerowicz type involving the Paneitz-Branson operator, and we prove existence and non existence results under given assumptions.

We give a condition which ensures that the Paneitz operator of an embedded three-dimensional CR manifold is nonnegative and has kernel consisting only of the CR pluriharmonic functions. Our condition requires uniform positivity of the Webster scalar curvature and the stability of the CR pluriharmonic functions for a re…

For a Riemannian manifold with dimension at least six, we prove that the existence of a conformal metric with positive scalar and Q curvature is equivalent to the positivity of both the Yamabe invariant and the Paneitz operator.

We define the second Paneitz-Branson operator on a compact Einsteinian manifold of dimension $n\geq 5$ and we give sufficient conditions that make it attained.

Study on metrics maximizing eigenvalues of Paneitz operator on 4-manifolds.

In this note, we mainly focus on the existence of pseudo-Einstein contact forms, an upper bound eigenvalue estimate for the CR Paneitz operator and its applications to the uniformization theorem for Sasakian space form in an embeddable closed strictly pseudoconvex CR 3-manifold. Firstly, the existence of pseudo-Einstei…

In a conformal class of metrics with positive Yamabe invariant, we derive a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of metrics with positive Q curvature. The condition is conformally invariant. We also prove some inequalities between the Green's functions of the conformal Laplacian operator and the Paneitz…

Proves Green function rigidity for specific operators and obtains new ADM mass formula.

Proves rigidity for eigenvalue estimate on three-manifolds.

Let M^3 be a closed CR 3-manifold. In this paper we derive a Bochner formula for the Kohn Laplacian in which the pseudo-hermitian torsion plays no role. By means of this formula we show that the non-zero eigenvalues of the Kohn Laplacian are bounded below by a positive constant provided the CR Paneitz operator is non-n…

In this note, we obtain the sharp estimates for the first eigenvalue of Paneitz operator for $4$-dimensional compact submanifolds in Euclidean space. Since unit spheres and projective spaces can be canonically imbedded into Euclidean space, the corresponding estimates for the first eigenvalue are also obtained.

We prove that under suitable assumptions, the constant term in the Green function of the Paneitz-Branson operator on a compact Riemannian manifold $(M,g)$ is positive unless $(M,g)$ is conformally diffeomophic to the standard sphere. The proof is inspired by the positive mass theorem on spin manifolds by Ammann-Humbert…

In this paper we consider Riemannian manifolds $(M^n,g)$ of dimension $n \geq 5$, with semi-positive $Q$-curvature and non-negative scalar curvature. Under these assumptions we prove $(i)$ the Paneitz operator satisfies a strong maximum principle; $(ii)$ the Paneitz operator is a positive operator; and $(iii)$ its Gree…

The paper bounds eigenvalues of specific operators on certain manifolds.

We introduce a fourth order CR invariant operator on pluriharmonic functions on a three-dimensional CR manifold, generalizing to the abstract setting the operator discovered by Branson, Fontana and Morpurgo. For a distinguished class of contact forms, all of which have vanishing Hirachi-$Q$ curvature, these operators d…

Under a spectral assumption on the Laplacian of a Poincaré--Einstein manifold, we establish an energy inequality relating the energy of a fractional GJMS operator of order $2γ\in(0,2)$ or $2γ\in(2,4)$ and the energy of the weighted conformal Laplacian or weighted Paneitz operator, respectively. This spectral assumption…

We present another proof of the sharp inequality for Paneitz operator on the standard three sphere, in the spirit of subcritical approximation for the classical Yamabe problem. To solve the perturbed problem, we use a symmetrization process which only works for extremal functions. This gives a new example of symmetriza…

The nonnegativity of the CR Paneitz operator plays a crucial role in three-dimensional CR geometry. In this paper, we prove this nonnegativity for embeddable CR manifolds. This result and previous works give an affirmative solution of the CR Yamabe problem for embeddable CR manifolds. We also show the existence of a co…

In this note we take some initial steps in the investigation of a fourth order analogue of the Yamabe problem in conformal geometry. The Paneitz constants and the Paneitz invariants considered are believed to be very helpful to understand the topology of the underlined manifolds. We calculate how those quantities chang…

Global convergence proved for Gursky-Malchiodi $Q$-curvature flow in dimensions $n \geq 5$.

We present a construction of curved analogues of the nonstandard operators on Grassmannians parallel to the construction of the Paneitz operator via the curved Casimir operator, but technically more demanding. In particular, the construction breaks down in the presence of torsion. In the second part, we prove that the …

We discuss some open problems and recent progress related to the 4th order Paneitz operator and Q curvature in dimensions other than 4.

This is the original manuscript dated March 9th 1983, typeset by the Editors for the Proceedings of the Midwest Geometry Conference 2007 held in memory of Thomas Branson. Stephen Paneitz passed away on September 1st 1983 while attending a conference in Clausthal and the manuscript was never published. For more than 20 …

In this paper, we study conformal invariants that arise from nodal sets and negative eigenvalues of conformally covariant operators; more specifically, the GJMS operators, which include the Yamabe and Paneitz operators. We give several applications to curvature prescription problems. We establish a version in conformal…

The article improves Beckner's inequality for axially symmetric functions on the n-dimensional sphere.

Derives formulas for extrinsic Paneitz operator and $Q$-curvature in general dimensions.

We give an integral formula for the total $Q^\prime$-curvature of a three-dimensional CR manifold with positive CR Yamabe constant and nonnegative Paneitz operator. Our derivation includes a relationship between the Green's functions of the CR Laplacian and the $P^\prime$-operator.

We develop the notion of renormalized energy in CR geometry, for maps from a strictly pseudoconvex pseudohermitian manifold to a Riemannian manifold. This energy is a CR invariant functional, whose critical points, which we call CR-harmonic maps, satisfy a CR covariant subelliptic partial differential equation. The cor…

Let $Ω$ be a bounded strictly pseudoconvex domain in $C^2$ with a smooth, connected and compact boundary M and having a CR structure $J_0$ induced from $C^2$. Assume this CR structure has zero Webster torsion. Then if we deform the CR structure through real-analytic dependence on the deformation parameter and such that…

A nonstandard invariant fourth order operator acting on functions on a manifold equipped with an almost Grassmannian structure with an arbitrary trorsion is found by means of the curved translation principle. This operator can be viewed as a Grassmannian analogue of the Paneitz operator well known from conformal geomet…

We introduce the notion of formally self-adjoint conformally covariant polydifferential operators and give some constructions of families of such operators. In one direction, we show that any homogeneous conformally variational scalar Riemannian invariant (CVI) induces one of these operators. In another direction, we u…

The paper constructs metrics with blow-up solutions for a curvature equation.

We define an ADM-like mass, called p-mass, for an asymptotically flat pseudohermitian manifold. The p-mass for the blow-up of a compact pseudohermitian manifold (with no boundary) is identified with the first nontrivial coefficient in the expansion of the Green function for the CR Laplacian. We deduce an integral formu…

For a smooth compact Riemannian manifold with positive Yamabe invariant, positive Q curvature and dimension at least 5, we prove the existence of a conformal metric with constant Q curvature. Our approach is based on the study of extremal problem for a new functional involving the Paneitz operator.

On a closed 4-dimensional Riemannian manifold, we give a lower bound for the square of the first eigenvalue of the Yamabe operator in terms of the total Branson's Q-curvature. As a consequence, if the manifold is spin, we relate the first eigenvalue of the Dirac operator to the total Branson's Q-curvature. On a closed …

Let $M^{2n-1}$ be the smooth boundary of a bounded strongly pseudo-convex domain $Ω$ in a complete Stein manifold $V^{2n}$. Then (1) For $n \ge 3$, $M^{2n-1}$ admits a pseudo-Eistein metric; (2) For $n \ge 2$, $M^{2n-1}$ admits a Fefferman metric of zero CR Q-curvature; and (3) for a compact strictly pseudoconvex CR em…

Using the Fourier analysis techniques on hyperbolic spaces and Green's function estimates, we confirm in this paper the conjecture given by the same authors in [43]. Namely, we prove that the sharp constant in the $\frac{n-1}{2}$-th order Hardy-Sobolev-Maz'ya inequality in the upper half space of dimension $n$ coincide…