Killing fields generated by multiple solutions to the Fischer–Marsden equation

Abstract

In the process of finding Einstein metrics in dimension n ≥ 3, we can search critical metrics for the scalar curvature functional in the space of the fixed-volume metrics of constant scalar curvature on a closed oriented manifold. This leads to a system of PDEs (which we call the Fischer–Marsden Equation, after a conjecture concerning this system) for scalar functions, involving the linearization of the scalar curvature. The Fischer–Marsden conjecture said that if the equation admits a solution, the underlying Riemannian manifold is Einstein. Counter-examples are known by O. Kobayashi and J. Lafontaine. However, almost all the counter-examples are homogeneous. Multiple solutions to this system yield Killing vector fields. We show that the dimension of the solution space W can be at most n+1, with equality implying that (M, g) is a sphere with constant sectional curvatures. Moreover, we show that the identity component of the isometry group has a factor SO(W). We also show that geometries admitting Fischer–Marsden solutions are closed under products with Einstein manifolds after a rescaling. Therefore, we obtain a lot of non-homogeneous counter-examples to the Fischer–Marsden conjecture. We then prove that all the homogeneous manifold M with a solution are in this case. Furthermore, we also proved that a related Besse conjecture is true for the compact homogeneous manifolds.