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Constant Q-curvature metrics on conic 4-manifolds

  • Hao Fang and Biao Ma ORCID logo EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: July 16, 2020

Abstract

We consider the constant Q-curvature metric problem in a given conformal class on a conic 4-manifold and study related differential equations. We define subcritical, critical, and supercritical conic 4-manifolds. Following [M. Troyanov, Prescribing curvature on compact surfaces with conical singularities, Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 324 1991, 2, 793–821] and [S.-Y. A. Chang and P. C. Yang, Extremal metrics of zeta function determinants on 4-manifolds, Ann. of Math. (2) 142 1995, 1, 171–212], we prove the existence of constant Q-curvature metrics in the subcritical case. For conic 4-spheres with two singular points, we prove the uniqueness in critical cases and nonexistence in supercritical cases. We also give the asymptotic expansion of the corresponding PDE near isolated singularities.

Keywords: conic manifolds
MSC 2010: 35R01; 53C21

Communicated by Zoltan Balogh


Funding source: Simons Foundation

Award Identifier / Grant number: 426312

Funding statement: Part of Hao Fang’s work is supported by a Simons Collaboration Grant. Part of Biao Ma’s work is supported by Graduate College Summer Fellowship of University of Iowa.

A Proof of Lemma 7.2

For each degree m, we only have to consider homogeneous polynomials in 𝒫 m . We discuss two cases where β - 1 2 or β = - 1 2 .

Case 1: Suppose that β - 1 2 .

Let p ( x ) 𝒫 m . By Euler formula, x i D i p ( x ) = m p ( x ) . We have

Δ ( p ( x ) r 4 β + 2 ) = r 4 β ( r 2 Δ p ( x ) + ( 4 β + 2 ) ( 4 β + 4 + 2 m ) p ( x ) ) .

So Δ ( p ( x ) r 4 β + 2 ) = f ( x ) r 4 β if

(A.1) r 2 Δ p ( x ) + ( 4 β + 2 ) ( 4 β + 4 + 2 m ) p ( x ) = f ( x ) .

Note if β ( - 1 , 0 ) and β - 1 2 , then ( 4 β + 2 ) ( 4 β + 4 + 2 m ) cannot be an eigenvalue of r 2 Δ . Then, by Lemma 7.1, we see that there exists a p ( x ) such that

Δ ( p ( x ) r 4 β + 2 ) = f ( x ) r 4 β .

Now let q ( x ) be a homogeneous polynomial with degree m. Then

Δ ( q ( x ) r 4 β + 4 ) = r 4 β + 2 ( r 2 Δ q ( x ) + ( 4 β + 4 ) ( 4 β + 6 + 2 m ) q ( x ) ) .

By applying Lemma 7.1 again, there is a polynomial such that Δ ( q ( x ) r 4 β + 4 ) = p ( x ) r 4 β + 2 .

To solve

(A.2) Δ 2 g = f ( x ) ( log r ) k | x | 4 β ,

we first compute

Δ [ p ( x ) r 4 β + 2 log r ] = r 4 β log r ( r 2 Δ p ( x ) + ( 4 β + 2 ) ( 2 m + 4 β + 4 ) p ( x ) ) + r 4 β ϕ ( x ) ,

where ϕ ( x ) 𝒫 m - 2 . First, we can solve

r 2 Δ p 1 ( x ) + ( 4 β + 2 ) ( 2 m + 4 β + 4 ) p 1 ( x ) = f ( x ) ,

as in (A.1). We can also find a polynomial p 2 ( x ) such that Δ ( p 2 ( x ) r 4 β + 2 ) = ϕ ( x ) r 4 β . Thus,

Δ [ r 4 β + 2 ( p 1 log r - p 2 ) ] = f ( x ) r 4 β log r .

By a similar argument, there exist q 1 , q 2 such that

Δ [ r 4 β + 4 ( q 1 ( x ) log r + q 2 ( x ) ) ] = ( p 1 ( x ) | x | 2 log r - p 2 ( x ) | x | 2 ) r 4 β ,

hence

Δ 2 [ ( q 1 ( x ) log r + q 2 ( x ) ) r 4 β + 4 ] = f ( x ) ( log r ) r 4 β .

This gives the solution g = r 4 β + 4 ( q 1 ( x ) log r + q 2 ( x ) ) for k = 1 in (A.2). We use induction for k 2 . Suppose that we can find solutions of (7.1) for 0 l k - 1 :

Δ ( p ( x ) r 4 β + 2 ( log r ) k ) = r 4 β ( log r ) k ( r 2 Δ p ( x ) + ( 4 β + 2 ) ( 4 β + 4 + 2 m ) p ( x ) ) + j = 0 k - 1 r 4 β ϕ j ( x ) ( log r ) j ,

where ϕ j ( x ) are polynomials. Then we can find p ( x ) such that

r 2 Δ p ( x ) + ( 4 β + 2 ) ( 4 β + 4 + 2 m ) p ( x ) = f ( x ) .

In the remaining terms j = 0 k - 1 r 4 β ϕ j ( x ) ( log r ) j , the degrees of log r are strictly smaller than k. Therefore, the remaining terms can be solved by induction and there exist { p l ( x ) } such that

Δ l p l r 4 β + 2 ( log r ) l = f ( x ) r 4 β ( log r ) k .

Repeat the argument for each f ~ ( x ) = p l ( x ) | x | 2 and we can solve (A.2).

Case 2: β = - 1 2 .

If homogeneous degree m = 0 , we see that Δ 2 ( c 16 r 2 log r ) = c r - 2 . So this is true for degree 0 polynomial. If m = 1 , direct computation shows that

Δ 2 ( a i x i 48 r 2 log r ) = a i x i .

If m = 2 , we have for i j ,

Δ 2 ( x i x j r 2 log r ) = 96 x i x j r - 2 .

For i = j , we compute

Δ 2 ( x i 2 r 2 log r ) = 32 + 96 x i 2 r - 2 + 48 log r .

Note that Δ 2 ( r 4 log r ) = 7 × 64 + 3 × 128 log r . Since Δ 2 r 4 = 192 , we can still find a solution for Δ 2 ( q ( x ) r 2 ) = x i 2 r 2 in the form of (7.2).

For functions in the form of f ( x ) r - 2 ( log r ) l in (7.3), we argue by induction with respect to k. Note the above argument is for l = 0 . Suppose that for 0 l k - 2 , we have a solution for (7.3). We prove for l = k - 1 . Any quadratic polynomial f ( x ) is a linear combination of 1 , x i , x i x j , x i 2 . Thus, we only have to consider these four subcases.

Subcase 1: f ( x ) = 1 . Take test function c r 2 ( log r ) k . Compute

(A.3) Δ 2 [ c r 2 ( log r ) k ] = c r - 2 ( c 1 ( log r ) k - 4 + c 2 ( log r ) k - 3 + c 3 ( log r ) k - 2 + 2 4 ( log r ) k - 1 ) ,

where c i are polynomials of k and c i = 0 for k = 1 , 2 , , 4 - i . Let c = 2 - 4 and the first term can be cancelled. The remaining terms f - Δ 2 [ c r 2 ( log r ) k ] in (A.3) are lower degrees terms and can be solved by induction.

Subcase 2: f ( x ) = x i . We consider a test function of the form c x i r 2 ( log r ) k . Direct computation shows

Δ 2 ( c x i r 2 ( log r ) k ) = c k x i r 2 log k - 4 ( r ) ( i = 0 2 c i ( log r ) i + 48 log 3 ( r ) ) .

Likewise, take c = ( 48 k ) - 1 . Then f ( x ) - Δ 2 ( c x i r 2 ( log r ) k ) has lower degrees in log r and we can solve the remaining terms by induction.

Subcase 3: f ( x ) = x i x j , i j . By taking out a test function in the form of c x i x j r 2 ( log r ) k with a proper choice of c, we may reduce the top degree of log r . Then the lower degree terms can be solved by induction. The argument is similar to Subcase 2.

Subcase 4: f ( x ) = x i 2 . We compute directly

(A.4) Δ 2 ( x i 2 r 2 ( log r ) k ) = x i 2 r - 2 ( log r ) k - 1 k × 96 + x i 2 r - 2 k P ( log r ) + Q ( log r ) ,

where P and Q are polynomials in one variable and deg P ( x ) k - 2 , deg Q ( x ) k . Note that the degree of P ( x ) is less than k - 1 . Thus, by induction assumption there exists a function P ¯ ( x ) in the form of (7.3) such that

(A.5) Δ 2 ( P ¯ ( x ) r 2 ) = x i 2 r - 2 P ( log r ) .

For Q ( x ) in (A.4), if it has degree k, there is a test function in the form of c r 4 ( log r ) k . We compute

Δ 2 ( r 4 ( log r ) k ) = k log k - 4 ( r ) ( ( k - 1 ) ( k - 2 ) ( k - 3 ) + b 1 k ( k - 1 ) ( k - 2 ) log ( r )
    + b 2 ( k - 1 ) k log 2 ( r ) + b 3 k log 3 ( r ) ) + 12 × 16 log k ( r ) ,

where b i are constants independent of k. Suppose that a k 0 is the coefficient of the top degree term of Q ( x ) . Then

R ( log r ) = Q ( log r ) - Δ 2 ( a k 12 × 16 r 4 ( log r ) k )

is a polynomial in log r with degree less than k. Thus, we can apply the induction assumption to R ( log r ) to show that there exists a polynomial Q ¯ ( x ) with deg Q ¯ ( x ) k and

(A.6) Δ 2 ( r 4 Q ¯ ( log r ) ) = Q ( log r ) .

Now let

f ~ ( x ) = 1 96 k ( x i 2 r 2 ( log r ) k - P ¯ ( x ) r 2 - r 4 Q ¯ ( log r ) ) .

By (A.4), (A.5) and (A.6),

Δ 2 f ~ ( x ) = x i 2 r - 2 ( log r ) k - 1 .

This completes the last case.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank referees for pointing out some previous works [6] and [23], which were unknown to us. We would like to thank Alice Chang and Paul Yang for their interest in this work. The second named author would like to thank Mijia Lai for help and comments. Part of this work was done when the second named author was visiting Shanghai Jiaotong University. He would like to thank the hospitality.

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Received: 2019-07-09
Revised: 2020-04-07
Accepted: 2020-06-04
Published Online: 2020-07-16
Published in Print: 2022-04-01

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