Linear stability of Perelman's ν-entropy on symmetric spaces of compact type

Abstract

AbstractFollowing [`Gaussian densities and stability for some Ricci solitons', preprint 2004], in this paper we study the linear stability of Perelman's ν-entropy on Einstein manifolds with positive Ricci curvature. We observe the equivalence between the linear stability (also called ν-stability in this paper) restricted to the transversal traceless symmetric 2-tensors and the stability of Einstein manifolds with respect to the Hilbert action. As a main application, we give a full classification of linear stability of the ν-entropy on symmetric spaces of compact type. In particular, we exhibit many more ν-stable and ν-unstable examples than previously known and also the first ν-stable examples, other than the standard spheres, whose second variations are negative definite.