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# Geometric inequalities on locally conformally flat manifolds

## 1. Introduction

In this paper, we are interested in certain global geometric quantities associated to the Schouten tensor and their relationship to each other in conformal geometry. For an oriented compact Riemannian manifold $`(M,g)`$ of dimension $`n>2`$, there is a sequence of geometric functionals arising naturally in conformal geometry, which generalize the Yamabe functional, introduced by Viaclovsky in  as curvature integrals of the Schouten tensor. If we let $`Ric_g`$ and $`R_g`$ denote the Ricci tensor and the scalar curvature of $`g`$ respectively, the Schouten tensor can be written as

$$S_g=\frac{1}{n2}\left(Ric_g\frac{R_g}{2(n1)}g\right).$$

Let $`\sigma _k`$ be the $`k`$th elementary symmetric function, and let

$$\sigma _k(g):=\sigma _k(g^1S_g)$$

be the $`\sigma _k`$-scalar curvature of $`g`$. We are interested in the following functionals defined by

(1)
$$_k(g)=vol(g)^{\frac{n2k}{n}}_M\sigma _k(g)𝑑g,k=0,1,\mathrm{},n,$$

where $`dg`$ is the volume form of $`g`$. For convenience, set $`\sigma _0(g)=1`$.

We note that $`_0(g)`$ is simply the volume of $`g`$ and $`_1(g)`$ is the Yamabe functional (up to a constant multiple). Let us fix a background metric $`g_0`$ and denote by $`[g_0]`$ the conformal class of $`g_0`$. The standard Sobolev inequality states that

$$_0(g)C_{[g_0]}(_1^{\frac{n}{n1}}(g)),\text{ for }g[g_0],$$

for some constant $`C_{[g_0]}`$ depending only on $`[g_0]`$. Equality holds if and only if the metric $`g`$ is a Yamabe minimizer. For $`g[g_0]`$, we can write $`g=e^{2u}g_0`$. Let $`S_{g_0}`$ and $`S_g`$ be the corresponding Schouten tensors of $`g_0`$ and $`g`$ respectively. There is a transformation formula relating them:

(2)
$$S_g=^2u+dudu\frac{|u|^2}{2}g_0+S_{g_0}.$$

From this point of view, $`_k(g)`$ in (1) resembles the $`k`$th quermassintegral in the theory of convex bodies. The classical quermasstintegral inequalities suggest that there may exist similar inequalities between the geometric quantities $`_k(g)`$.

The focus of this paper is the investigation of the precise relationship of the geometric quantities defined in (1). As we will see, there exists a complete system of sharp inequalities for $`_k`$ on locally conformally flat manifolds, and the cases of equality will be characterized by certain “extremal” metrics, just as in the case of the Yamabe problem. The main tool used to obtain these geometric inequalities is the theory of parabolic fully nonlinear equations, and this is one of the special features of this paper.

When $`(M,g_0)`$ is a locally conformally flat manifold and $`kn/2`$, it was proved by Viaclovsky in  that the critical points of $`_k`$ in $`[g_0]`$ are the metrics $`g`$ satisfying the equation

(3)
$$\sigma _k(g)=constant.$$

For $`k=n/2`$, $`_{\frac{n}{2}}(g)`$ is a constant in the conformal class (see ). In this case, there is another functional which was discovered in . A similar functional was also found in . The functional in  is defined by

(4) $`_{n/2}(g)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^1}{\displaystyle _M}\sigma _{n/2}(g_t)u𝑑g_t𝑑t,`$
where $`u`$ is the conformal factor of $`g=e^{2u}g_0`$ and $`g_t=e^{2tu}g_0`$. Unlike $`_k`$, $`_{n/2}`$ depends on the choice of the background metric $`g_0`$. However, its derivative $`_{n/2}`$ does not depend on the choice of $`g_0`$. The critical points of $`_{n/2}`$ correspond to the metrics $`g`$ satisfying (3) for $`k=n/2`$ on locally conformally flat manifolds. These important variational properties are unknown for general (i.e. not locally conformally flat) manifolds for $`k>2`$. For this reason, we will restrict ourselves to locally conformally flat manifolds in our study of $`_k`$ in this paper. Another advantage of locally conformally flat manifolds is the availability of the fundamental result of Schoen-Yau  on developing maps, which is crucial for us in establishing the gradient estimates for the conformal flow (13) we consider below.

We will establish three types of inequalities depending on the range of $`k`$. More precisely, a Sobolev type inequality (5) is established for any $`k<\frac{n}{2}`$ and a conformal quermassintegral type inequality (8) for any $`kn/2`$. And, for the exceptional case $`k=n/2`$, we establish a Moser-Trudinger type inequality (9) for $`_{n/2}`$.

Before giving precise results, let us first recall some notation and definitions. Let

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+=\{\mathrm{\Lambda }=(\lambda _1,\lambda _2,\mathrm{},\lambda _n)^n|\sigma _j(\mathrm{\Lambda })>0,jk\}.$$

Let $`\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_k^+`$ be the closure of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$. A $`C^2`$ metric $`g`$ is said to be in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$ if the eigenvalues of $`g^1S_g(x)\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$ for any $`xM`$ (see ). Such a metric is also called admissible. Similarly, a $`C^{1,1}`$ metric is said to be in $`\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_k^+`$ if the eigenvalues of $`g^1S_g(x)\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_k^+`$ for any $`xM`$. For convenience, we set $`\sigma _0(A)=1`$ and $`\sigma _0(g)=1`$. We denote

$$𝒞_k([g_0])=\{gC^{4,\alpha }[g_0]|g\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+\},$$

where $`[g_0]`$ is the conformal class of $`g_0`$. Here $`0<\alpha <1`$.

Unlike the Yamabe equation ($`k=1`$ in (3)), equation (3) is fully nonlinear when $`k>1`$. Moreover, from work in , it is necessary to assume $`g\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$ (or $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^{}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$) for $`k>1`$ in order to make use of elliptic theory. This is a very restrictive condition. It is proved in  that any locally conformally flat $`(M,g)`$ with $`g\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\frac{n}{2}}^+`$ is a space form. Nevertheless, for $`k<\frac{n}{2}`$, there are plenty of other locally conformally flat manifolds. For example, $`𝕊^1\times 𝕊^{n1}`$ with the standard product metric is in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$ for any $`k<\frac{n}{2}`$, and $`^p\times 𝕊^{np}`$ with the standard product metric is in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$ for certain range of $`2k`$ when $`p`$ is sufficiently small compared to $`n`$. Furthermore, if $`(M_1,g_1)`$ and $`(M_2,g_2)`$ are two $`n`$-dimensional locally conformally flat manifolds with $`g_i\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$ ($`i=1,2`$) for some $`1k<\frac{n}{2}`$, then one can construct a locally conformally flat metric $`g\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$ on the connected sum of them (see also ). This type of construction yields a wide class of locally conformally flat manifolds with metrics in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$ for each $`k<\frac{n}{2}`$.

We now state our main results. Since any metric $`g\mathrm{\Gamma }_{n/2}^+`$ is conformally equivalent to a metric of constant sectional curvature (see ), we will assume, whenever we consider (4) in this paper, that $`g_0`$ has constant sectional curvature.

###### Theorem 1.

Suppose that $`(M,g_0)`$ is a compact, oriented and connected locally conformally flat manifold with $`g_0\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$ smooth and $`g𝒞_k`$. Let $`0l<kn`$.

* Sobolev type inequality: If $`0l<k<\frac{n}{2}`$, then there is a positive constant $`C_S=C_S([g_0],n,k,l)`$ depending only on $`n`$, $`k`$, $`l`$ and the conformal class $`[g_0]`$ such that

(5)
$$\left(_k(g)\right)^{\frac{1}{n2k}}C_S\left(_l(g)\right)^{\frac{1}{n2l}}.$$

If we normalize $`_M\sigma _l(g)𝑑g=1`$, then equality holds in (5) if and only if

(6)
$$\frac{\sigma _k(g)}{\sigma _l(g)}=C_S^{n2k}.$$

There exists a metric $`g_E𝒞_k`$ attaining equality in (5). Furthermore,

(7)
$$C_SC_{S,k,l}(𝕊^n)=\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n}{k}\right)^{\frac{1}{n2k}}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n}{l}\right)^{\frac{1}{n2l}}\left(\frac{\omega _n^2}{2^n}\right)^{\frac{kl}{(n2k)(n2l)}},$$

where $`\omega _n`$ is the volume of the standard sphere $`𝕊^n`$.
* Conformal quermassintegral type inequality: If $`n/2kn`$, $`1l<k`$, then

(8)
$$\left(_k(g)\right)^{\frac{1}{k}}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n}{k}\right)^{\frac{1}{k}}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n}{l}\right)^{\frac{1}{l}}\left(_l(g)\right)^{\frac{1}{l}}.$$

Equality in (8) holds if and only if $`(M,g)`$ is a spherical space form.
* Moser-Trudinger type inequality: If $`k=n/2`$, then

(9)
$$(n2l)_{n/2}(g)C_{MT}\left\{\mathrm{log}_M\sigma _l(g)𝑑g\mathrm{log}_M\sigma _l(g_0)𝑑g_0\right\},$$

where

$$C_{MT}=_M\sigma _{n/2}(g_0)𝑑g_0=\frac{\omega _n}{2^{\frac{n}{2}}}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n}{\frac{n}{2}}\right).$$

Equality holds in (9) if and only if $`(M,g)`$ is a space form. The above inequality is also true for $`l>k=n/2`$, provided $`g𝒞_l`$.

When $`l=0`$ and $`k=1`$, inequality (5) is the standard Sobolev inequality (e.g., see ). For $`l=0`$ and $`1k<\frac{n}{2}`$, inequality (5) provides the optimal control of the $`L^n`$-norm of $`e^u`$ in terms of $`_k`$. For these reasons, we call (5) a Sobolev type inequality. We were informed by Professor Alice Chang that Maria Del Mar Gonzalez  obtained inequality (7) independently for $`l=0`$. We suspect that (7) should be true on general compact manifolds. Inequality (5) plays a key role in the proof of a main result in .

Inequality (8) is reminiscent of the classical quermassintegral inequality (e.g., see  for a discussion), which provides one of the motivations for this paper. In the case $`n=4,k=2`$ and $`l=1`$, inequality (8) was proved earlier by Gursky in  for general $`4`$-dimensional manifolds. Some cases of the inequality were also verified in  and  for locally conformally flat manifolds.

Inequality (9) is similar to the Moser-Trudinger inequality on compact Riemannian surfaces (see , ,  and ). When $`l=0`$, (9) was proved by Brendle-Viaclovsky and Chang-Yang in  and  using a result in  on a fully nonlinear conformal flow, and was referred to by them as the Moser-Trudinger inequality. We also refer to  for a different form of the Moser-Trudinger inequality in higher dimensions.

The Yamabe problem is the problem of finding a metric in the conformal class $`[g_0]`$ which minimizes the functional $`_1(g)`$. The final solution of the Yamabe problem by Aubin  and Schoen  is one of the triumphs of geometric analysis. There have been several important generalizations of Yamabe type problems in other settings such as the CR Yamabe problem studied by Jerison-Lee . Viaclovsky  considered another type of Yamabe problem: for $`1kn`$, find a metric $`g[g_0]`$ satisfying equation (3), or equivalently the following partial differential equation for the function $`u`$ in local orthonormal frames with respect to $`g_0`$:

(10)
$$\sigma _k\left(u_{ij}+u_iu_j\frac{|u|^2}{2}\delta _{ij}+S_{ij}\right)=ce^{2ku},$$

where $`S_{ij}`$ are the entries of $`S_{g_0}`$, $`u_i`$ and $`u_{ij}`$ are the first and second order covariant derivatives of $`u`$ with respect to the local orthonormal frames. When $`k>1`$, equation (10) is fully nonlinear. There has been much recent activity surrounding equation (10). Viaclovsky  obtained some existence results for $`k=n`$ under certain geometric conditions. Equation (3) was solved by Chang-Gursky-Yang  in the case $`n=4,k=2`$. Gursky-Viaclovsky studied the equation for the negative cone case in , and more recently for the lower dimensional cases $`n=3,4`$ in . For the locally conformally flat manifolds, equation (3) was completely solved by Guan-Wang  and Li-Li , and for more general conformally invariant equations by Guan-Lin-Wang  and Li-Li . We remark that for $`k\frac{n}{2}`$, $`(M,g_0)`$ is conformally equivalent to a space form by , so any solution of (3) is a maximizer of $`_k`$. But, for $`k<\frac{n}{2}`$, the previous solutions to equation (3) obtained in  are not necessarily the Yamabe type solutions. That is, they are not necessarily minimizers of the functional $`_k`$. Similarly, neither are the solutions of (6) on a locally conformally flat manifold obtained in  and  necessarily minimizers of a corresponding functional.

One immediate consequence of Theorem 1 is the existence of a minimizer (or maximizer) solution of the general conformal quotient equation (6). For simplicity of notation, we will denote $`\frac{\sigma _k(A)}{\sigma _l(A)}`$ by $`\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(A)`$. By the transformation formula (2), equation (6) can be expressed in the fully nonlinear form:

(11)
$$\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}\left(u_{ij}+u_iu_j\frac{|u|^2}{2}\delta _{ij}+S_{ij}\right)=ce^{2(kl)u}.$$

###### Corollary 1.

For any $`0l<k`$, there is an extremal metric $`g_E𝒞_k`$ satisfying equation (11) which is a global minimizer (maximizer) of $`_k`$ in $`𝒞_k`$ with $`_M\sigma _l(g_E)𝑑g_E=1`$ ($`_{n/2}(g_E)=1`$ if $`l=n/2`$) when $`k<n/2`$ ($`k>n/2`$); when $`k=n/2`$, there is a global minimizer of $`_{n/2}`$.

We will prove Theorem 1 by studying an associated flow equation. The approach of using flows to study geometric inequalities was previously considered in different contexts by various authors in . In the conformal context, a simpler flow was introduced in

(12)
$$\{\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \frac{d}{dt}g& =& (\mathrm{log}\sigma _k(g)\mathrm{log}r_k(g))g,\hfill \\ \hfill g(0)& =& g_0,\hfill \end{array}$$

where $`r_k(g)`$ is given by

$$r_k(g)=\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{1}{vol(g)}_M\mathrm{log}\sigma _k(g)𝑑g\right).$$

The global existence, regularity and convergence for the flow (12) was proved there. For the purpose of this paper, we need to deal with the following general fully nonlinear flow:

(13)
$$\{\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \frac{d}{dt}g& =& \left(\mathrm{log}\frac{\sigma _k(g)}{\sigma _l(g)}\mathrm{log}r_{k,l}\right)g,\hfill \\ \hfill g(0)& =& g_0,\hfill \end{array}$$

where

$$r_{k,l}=\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\sigma _l(g)\mathrm{log}(\sigma _k(g)\sigma _l(g)^1)𝑑g}{\sigma _l(g)𝑑g}\right)$$

is defined so that the flow (13) preserves $`\sigma _l(g)𝑑g`$ when $`ln/2`$ and $`_{n/2}`$ when $`l=n/2`$. We have the following result for the flow (13).

###### Theorem 2.

For any $`C^{4,\alpha }`$ initial metric $`g_0\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$, the flow (13) has a global solution $`g(t)𝒞_k`$ for any $`t>0`$. Moreover, there is $`h𝒞_k`$ satisfying equation (6) such that,

$$\underset{t\mathrm{}}{lim}g(t)h_{C^{4,\alpha }(M)}=0.$$

Flows (12) and (13) are fully nonlinear conformal equations. The first step is to obtain a Harnack inequality (i.e., the boundedness of $`|g(t)|`$, see (40) below). This can be done using a fundamental result of Schoen-Yau on developing maps and the method of moving planes as in . This is where the assumption of locally conformally flat is used crucially. For the flow (12), since the volume of the evolved metric is preserved, $`C^0`$ boundedness is a direct consequence of the Harnack inequality (see  and ). However the flow (13) may not preserve the volume. This is the major difference between the flows (12) and (13). To deal with this problem we first use the Harnack inequality (40) to bound $`|^2g(t)|`$. From there we obtain a $`C^0`$ bound using our previous results  and the local estimates in . The preliminaries for this are developed in Section 2.

We will also need local estimates for equation (6) in the case $`0l<k<\frac{n}{2}`$. These estimates are needed to prove Theorem 1.A. The existence of such local estimates is a very special feature of this type of conformal fully nonlinear equation and is crucial for the study of the elliptic equation (6).

This paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we list some basic facts regarding $`\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}`$ and the flow (13) and prove Theorem 1 for the case $`l=0`$. In Section 3, we establish some local estimates for equation (6), which will be used in a crucial way to obtain a positive lower bound for the geometric functionals. In Section 4, we study the flow (13) and prove Theorem 2. Theorem 1 for the case $`l>0`$ will be proved in Section 5. In Section 6, we discuss the best constant, which appears in part (A) of Theorem 1.

Notation: In the rest of the paper, $`u_i,u_{ij},\mathrm{}`$ denote the covariant derivatives of the function $`u`$ with respect to some local orthonormal frames of the background metric $`g_0`$, unless it is otherwise indicated.

Acknowledgement: Part of this work was carried out while the second author was visiting Mathematics Department, McMaster University, in April 2002. He would like to thank the department for its hospitality. We would also like to thank Eric Sawyer and the referees for valuable suggestions regarding the presentation of this paper.

## 2. Some basic facts

Let $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=(\lambda _1,\mathrm{},\lambda _n)𝐑^n`$. The $`k`$th elementary symmetric function is defined as

$$\sigma _k(\lambda _1,\mathrm{},\lambda _n)=\underset{i_1<\mathrm{}<i_k}{}\lambda _{i_1}\mathrm{}\lambda _{i_k}.$$

A real symmetric $`n\times n`$ matrix $`A`$ is said to lie in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$ if its eigenvalues lie in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$. Let $`A_{ij}`$ be the $`\{i,j\}`$-entry of an $`n\times n`$ matrix. Then for $`0kn`$, the $`k`$th Newton transformation associated with $`A`$ is defined to be

$$T_k(A)=\sigma _k(A)I\sigma _{k1}(A)A+\mathrm{}+(1)^kA^k.$$

We have

$$T_k(A)_j^i=\frac{1}{k!}\delta _{j_1\mathrm{}j_kj}^{i_1\mathrm{}i_ki}A_{i_1j_1}\mathrm{}A_{i_kj_k},$$

where $`\delta _{j_1\mathrm{}j_kj}^{i_1\mathrm{}i_ki}`$ is the generalized Kronecker delta symbol. Here we use the summation convention. By definition,

$$\sigma _k(A)=\frac{1}{k!}\delta _{j_1\mathrm{}j_k}^{i_1\mathrm{}i_k}A_{i_1j_1}\mathrm{}A_{i_kj_k},T_{k1}(A)_j^i=\frac{\sigma _k(A)}{A_{ij}}.$$

For $`0<l<kn`$, let

$$\stackrel{~}{T}_{k1,l1}(A)=\frac{T_{k1}(A)}{\sigma _k(A)}\frac{T_{l1}(A)}{\sigma _l(A)}.$$

It is important to note that if $`A\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$, then $`\stackrel{~}{T}_{k1,l1}(A)\text{ is positive definite.}`$ This follows the fact that the function $`\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(A)`$ is monotonic in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$, that is if $`BA`$ is semi-positive, then $`\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(A)\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(B)`$. Another important fact is that $`(\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(A))^{\frac{1}{kl}}`$ is concave in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$ (e.g., see ). Let $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_i=(\lambda _1,\lambda _2,\mathrm{},\lambda _{i1},\lambda _{i+1},\mathrm{},\lambda _n).`$

###### Lemma 1 (Newton-MacLaurin Inequality ).

(14)
$$l(nk+1)\sigma _l(\mathrm{\Lambda })\sigma _{k1}(\mathrm{\Lambda })k(nl+1)\sigma _k(\mathrm{\Lambda })\sigma _{l1}(\mathrm{\Lambda }).$$

###### Lemma 2 (Garding’s Inequality).

Let $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=(\lambda _1,\mathrm{},\lambda _n),\mathrm{\Lambda }_0=(\mu _1,\mathrm{},\mu _n)\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$,

$$F(\mathrm{\Lambda })=\left(\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(\mathrm{\Lambda })\right)^{\frac{1}{kl}}.$$

Then,

(15)
$$\underset{i}{}\{\frac{\sigma _{k1}(\mathrm{\Lambda }_i)}{\sigma _k(\mathrm{\Lambda })}\frac{\sigma _{l1}(\mathrm{\Lambda }_i)}{\sigma _l(\mathrm{\Lambda })}\}\mu _i(kl)\frac{F(\mathrm{\Lambda }_0)}{F(\mathrm{\Lambda })}.$$

Proof. The main argument of the proof follows from . From the concavity of $`F`$ in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$, for $`\mathrm{\Lambda },\mathrm{\Lambda }_0=(\mu _1,\mathrm{},\mu _n)\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$ we have

$`F(\mathrm{\Lambda }_0)`$ $``$ $`F(\mathrm{\Lambda })+{\displaystyle \underset{l}{}}(\mu _i\lambda _i){\displaystyle \frac{F(\mathrm{\Lambda })}{\lambda _i}}`$
$`=`$ $`F(\mathrm{\Lambda })+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{kl}}F(\mathrm{\Lambda }){\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}\{{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _{k1}(\mathrm{\Lambda }_i)}{\sigma _k(\mathrm{\Lambda })}}{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _{l1}(\mathrm{\Lambda }_i)}{\sigma _l(\mathrm{\Lambda })}}\}(\mu _i\lambda _i)`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{kl}}F(\mathrm{\Lambda }){\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}\{{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _{k1}(\mathrm{\Lambda }_i)}{\sigma _k(\mathrm{\Lambda })}}{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _{l1}(\mathrm{\Lambda }_i)}{\sigma _l(\mathrm{\Lambda })}}\}\mu _i.`$
In the last equality, we have used the fact that $`F`$ is homogeneous of degree one. Then (15) follows.

###### Lemma 3.

A conformal class of metric $`[g]`$ with $`[g]\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+\mathrm{}`$ does not have a $`C^{1,1}`$ metric $`g_1\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_k^+`$ with $`\sigma _k(g_1)=0`$, where $`\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_k^+`$ is the closure of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$.

Proof. By the assumption, there is a smooth admissible metric $`g_0`$ with $`\sigma _k(g)>0`$. Assume by contradiction that there is a $`C^{1,1}`$ metric $`g_1`$ with $`\sigma _k(g_1)=0`$. Write $`g_1=e^{2u}g_0`$, so $`u`$ satisfies

(16)
$$\sigma _k\left(^2u+dudu\frac{|u|^2}{2}g_0+S_{g_0}\right)=0.$$

Let

$$W=\left(^2u+dudu\frac{|u|^2}{2}g_0+S_{g_0}\right)\text{and}a_{ij}(W)=\frac{\sigma _k(W)}{w_{ij}}.$$

(Here, the notation $`a_{ij}(W)=\frac{\sigma _k(W)}{w_{ij}}`$ is usually used by analysts. More intrinsically, $`a_{ij}=T_{k1}(W)_j^i`$, where $`T_{k1}(W)`$ is the $`(k1)`$th Newton transformation defined above and $`W`$ is viewed as the matrix $`g_0^1W`$.) We may assume $`u1`$ and $`u(x_0)=1`$ for some $`x_0M`$, since $`u+c`$ also satisfies (16) for any constant $`c`$. Let $`v=e^ue^1`$, $`h_t=te^u+(1t)e^1`$, $`u_t=\mathrm{log}h_t`$ and $`W_t=^2u_t+du_tdu_t\frac{|u_t|^2}{2}g_0+S_{g_0}`$. As in , one can check that (a) $`W_t\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$ and (b) $`(a_{ij}(W_t))`$ positive definite (nonnegative definite, resp.) for all $`0t<1`$ ($`0t1`$ resp.). We have the following

(17)
$$0>\sigma _k(W_1)\sigma _k(W_0)=\underset{ij}{}(_0^1\frac{a_{ij}(W_t)}{h_t^2}𝑑t)_{ij}^2v+\underset{l}{}b^l(t,x)_lv+dv,$$

for some bounded functions $`d`$ and $`b^l`$, $`l=1,\mathrm{},n`$. Since $`v0`$ and $`v(x_0)=0`$, this is a contradiction to the strong maximum principle.

For any $`0<kn`$, let

(18) $`\stackrel{~}{}_k(g)=\{\begin{array}{cc}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n2k}}{\displaystyle _M}\sigma _k(g)𝑑g,\hfill & kn/2,\hfill \\ _{n/2}(g),\hfill & k=n/2.\hfill \end{array}`$
###### Lemma 4.

Flow (13) preserves $`\stackrel{~}{}_l`$, it also decreases the functional $`\stackrel{~}{}_k`$. In fact, we have the following evolution identities. The evolution equations for $`\mathrm{log}\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{}_k`$ are

(19)
$$\frac{d}{dt}\mathrm{log}\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g)=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{tr}\{\stackrel{~}{T}_{k1,l1}(S_g)_g^2\mathrm{log}\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g)\}+(kl)(\mathrm{log}\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g)\mathrm{log}r_{k,l})$$

and

(20)
$$\frac{d}{dt}\stackrel{~}{}_k(g)=\frac{1}{2}_M\left(\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g)r_{k,l}\right)\left(\mathrm{log}\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g)\mathrm{log}r_{k,l}\right)\sigma _l(g)𝑑g.$$

Proof. It is easy to verify $`\frac{d}{dt}\stackrel{~}{}_l(g)=0`$ from the equation and the definition of $`r_{k,l}`$. The first equality follows the same argument in . We verify the second equality. When $`k\frac{n}{2}`$,

$`\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill {\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}\stackrel{~}{}_k(g)& =& {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle _M}\sigma _k(g)g^1{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}g𝑑g\hfill \\ & =& {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle _M}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}}(g)r_{k,l}\right)\left(\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}}(g)\mathrm{log}r_{k,l}\right)\sigma _l(g)𝑑g.\hfill \end{array}`$
The first equality was proven in , where the assumption of locally conformally flat is used. By , the above also holds for $`k=\frac{n}{2}`$.

In the rest of this section we use results obtained in  for flow (12) to establish Theorem 1 in the case $`l=0`$.

###### Proposition 1.

Let $`(M,g_0)`$ be a locally conformally flat manifold with $`g_0\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$. We have

* When $`k>n/2`$, there is a constant $`C_Q=C_Q(n,k)>0`$ depending only on $`n`$ and $`k`$ such that for any metric $`g𝒞_k`$.

$$_M\sigma _k(g)vol(g)C_Qvol(g)^{\frac{n2k}{n}}.$$
* When $`k<n/2`$, there is a constant $`C_S=C_S([g_0],n)>0`$ such that for any metric $`g𝒞_k`$.

$$_M\sigma _k(g)vol(g)C_Svol(g)^{\frac{n2k}{n}}.$$
* If $`k=n/2`$ and $`g_0`$ is a metric of constant sectional curvature, then for any $`g𝒞_k`$

$$_{n/2}(g)\frac{1}{n}C_{MT}(\mathrm{log}vol(g)\mathrm{log}vol(g_0)),$$

where $`C_{MT}=_M\sigma _{n/2}(g_0)𝑑g_0`$.

Moreover, in cases (a) and (c) the equality holds if and only if $`g`$ is a metric of constant sectional curvature.

Proof. (c) was already proved in .

When $`k>n/2`$, from  we know that $`(M,g_0)`$ is conformally equivalent to a spherical space form. In this case, it was proved in  that any solution of (6) for $`l=0`$ is of constant sectional curvature. By Theorem 1 in  ($`k>\frac{n}{2}`$), for any $`g𝒞_k`$ there is a metric $`g_e𝒞_k`$ of constant sectional curvature with $`vol(g)=vol(g_e)`$ and

(22)
$$\stackrel{~}{}_k(g)\stackrel{~}{}_k(g_e).$$

When $`k>n/2`$, (22) implies that

$$vol(g)^{\frac{n2k}{n}}_M\sigma _k(g)𝑑gvol(g_e)^{\frac{n2k}{n}}_M\sigma _k(g_e)𝑑g_e,$$

and the equality holds if and only if $`(M,g)`$ is a space form. It is clear that

$$vol(g_e)^{\frac{n2k}{n}}_M\sigma _k(g_e)𝑑g_e$$

is a constant depending only on $`n,k`$. This proves (a).

It remains to prove (b). For this case, we only need to prove that

$$\underset{𝒞_k\{vol(g)=1\}}{inf}_k(g)=:\beta _0>0.$$

Assume by contradiction that $`\beta _0=0`$. By Theorem 1 in , we can find a sequence of solutions $`g_i=e^{2u_i}g_0𝒞_k`$ of (3) with $`vol(g_i)=1`$ and $`\sigma _k(g_i)=\beta _i`$ such that $`lim_i\mathrm{}\beta _i=0`$. $`\sigma _k(g_l)=\beta _i`$ means

(23)
$$\sigma _k(^2u_i+du_idu_i\frac{|u_i|^2}{2}g_0+S_{g_0})=\beta _ie^{2ku_i}.$$

Consider the scaled metric $`\stackrel{~}{g}_i=e^{2\stackrel{~}{u}_i}g_0`$ with $`\stackrel{~}{u}_i=u_i\frac{1}{2k}\mathrm{log}\beta _i`$, which satisfies clearly that

(24)
$$\sigma _k\left(^2\stackrel{~}{u}_i+d\stackrel{~}{u}_id\stackrel{~}{u}_i\frac{|\stackrel{~}{u}_i|^2}{2}g_0+S_{g_0}\right)=e^{2k\stackrel{~}{u}_i}$$

and

$$vol(\stackrel{~}{g}_i)=\beta _{i}^{}{}_{}{}^{\frac{n}{2k}}0\text{ as }i\mathrm{}.$$

By Corollary 1.2 in , we conclude that

$$\stackrel{~}{u}_i+\mathrm{}\text{ uniformly as }i\mathrm{}.$$

Hence $`m_i:=inf_M\stackrel{~}{u}_i+\mathrm{}`$ as $`i\mathrm{}`$. Now at the minimum point $`x_i`$ of $`\stackrel{~}{u}_i`$, by (24),

$$\sigma _k(S_{g_0})\sigma _k\left(^2\stackrel{~}{u}_i+d\stackrel{~}{u}_id\stackrel{~}{u}_i\frac{|\stackrel{~}{u}_i|^2}{2}g_0+S_{g_0}\right)=e^{2km_i}0.$$

This is a contradiction to the fact $`g_0\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$.

## 3. Local estimates for conformal quotient equations

In order to get a positive lower bound for the constant in (A) of Theorem 1, as in the proof of Proposition 1 in the previous section, we prove some estimates for solutions of

(25)
$$\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g)=f,$$

defined locally in any open subset of $`M`$ with a nonnegative $`C^2`$ function $`f`$. When $`l=0`$ local estimates were established in . The same estimates hold for equation (25) when $`0l<kn`$. Since the proof for the special case $`(nk+1)(nl+1)>2(n+1)`$ is much simpler and it is suffice for the purpose of this paper, we only treat this case here. The local estimates for equation (25) in general case $`0l<kn`$ will appear elsewhere. We emphasize that, in this section, we do not assume $`(M,g_0)`$ is locally conformally flat .

###### Theorem 3.

Let $`(M,g_0)`$ be a smooth compact, $`n`$-dimensional manifold and let $`g=e^{2u}g_0`$ be a $`C^4`$ solution of (25) in $`B_r`$ with

(26)
$$(nk+1)(nl+1)>2(n+1).$$

Then there exist two positive constants $`c_1`$ (depending only on $`g_0_{C^3(B_r)}`$, $`n,k,l`$ and $`f_{C^1(B_r)})`$) and $`c_2`$ (depending only on $`g_0_{C^4(B_r)}`$, $`n,k,l`$ and $`f_{C^2(B_r)}`$) such that $`xB_{\frac{r}{2}}`$,

(27)
$$|u(x)|^2c_1(1+e^{2inf_{B_r}u})$$

and

(28)
$$|^2u(x)|c_2(1+e^{2inf_{B_r}u}).$$

In particular, if $`k<\frac{n}{2}`$, condition (26) holds, and hence inequalities (27) and (28) are valid in this case.

Theorem 3 has the following consequence.

###### Corollary 2.

Let $`k,l`$ as in Theorem 3. There exists a constant $`\epsilon _0>0`$ such that for any sequence of $`C^{4,\alpha }`$ solutions $`u_i`$ of (25) in $`B_r`$ with

$$_{B_1}e^{nu}𝑑vol(g_0)\epsilon _0,$$

either

* There is a subsequence $`u_{i_l}`$ uniformly converging to $`+\mathrm{}`$ in any compact subset in $`B_r`$, or
* There is a subsequence $`u_{i_l}`$ converges strongly in $`C_{loc}^{4,\alpha }(B_r)`$. If $`f`$ is smooth and strictly positive in $`B_r`$ and $`u_i`$ is smooth, then $`u_{i_l}`$ converges strongly in $`C_{loc}^m(B_r)`$, $`m`$.

The proof of Corollary 2 follows from the same lines in the proof of Corollary 1.2 in , the same argument can be traced back to Schoen , we will not repeat it here.

Proof of Theorem 3. The proof in  works for (28) as $`(\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l})^{\frac{1}{kl}}`$ is elliptic and concave in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$. We only need to prove (27).

We follow the same lines of proof in  to prove the Theorem, together with Lemma 5 proven at the end of this section. For convenince of the reader, we will use the same notations as in .

Without loss of generality, we may assume $`r=1`$. Let

$$F=\left(\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(W)\right)^{\frac{1}{kl}}\text{ and }F^{ij}=\frac{F}{w_{ij}},$$

where $`W=(^2u+dudu\frac{|u|^2}{2}g_0+S_{g_0})`$. More intrinsically,

$$F^{ij}=\frac{1}{kl}\left(\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(W)\right)^{\frac{1}{kl}1}\frac{1}{\sigma _l^2(W)}\left\{\sigma _l(W)T_{k1}(W)_j^i\sigma _k(W)T_{l1}(W)_j^i\right\},$$

where $`T_j`$ is the $`j`$th Newton transformation. Let $`\rho `$ be a test function $`\rho C_0^{\mathrm{}}(B_1)`$ such that

(29)
$$\begin{array}{c}\rho 0,\text{ in }B_1\text{ and }\rho =1,\text{ in }B_{1/2},\hfill \\ |\rho (x)|2b_0\rho ^{1/2}(x)\text{ and }|^2\rho |b_0,\text{ in }B_1.\hfill \end{array}$$

Here $`b_0>1`$ is a constant depending only on the background metric $`g_0`$. Set $`H=\rho |u|^2`$. It suffices to bound $`\mathrm{max}_{B_1}H`$. Let $`x_0B_1`$ be a maximum point of $`H`$. We may assume that $`W`$ is diagonal at the point $`x_0`$ by choosing a suitable normal coordinates around $`x_0`$. Set $`\lambda _i=w_{ii}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=(\lambda _1,\lambda _2,\mathrm{},\lambda _n)`$. In what follows, all computations are given at the point $`x_0`$. We denote $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_i`$ the vector with $`i`$th component deleted from $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and

$$F^{}=\frac{1}{kl}\left(\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(\mathrm{\Lambda })\right)^{\frac{1}{kl}1}\frac{1}{\sigma _l^2(\mathrm{\Lambda })}.$$

At the point $`x_0`$, $`(F^{ij})`$ is diagonal and

(30)
$$F^{ii}=F^{}\{\sigma _l(\mathrm{\Lambda })\sigma _{k1}(\mathrm{\Lambda }_i)\sigma _k(\mathrm{\Lambda })\sigma _{l1}(\mathrm{\Lambda }_i)\}.$$

Since $`W`$ is diagonal at $`x_0`$, we have at $`x_0`$

(31)
$$w_{ii}=u_{ii}+u_i^2\frac{1}{2}|u|^2+S_{ii},u_{ij}=u_iu_jS_{ij},ij,$$

where $`S_{ij}`$ are entries of $`S_{g_0}`$.

We may assume that

$$H(x_0)b_0^2A_0^2,$$

for some constant $`A_0`$ will be fixed later. We may also assume that

(32)
$$|S_{g_0}|(x_0)A_0^1|u|^2(x_0).$$

Otherwise, we are done. Since $`x_0`$ is the maximum point of $`H`$, we can get, for any $`i`$,

(33)
$$\left|\underset{l=1}{\overset{n}{}}u_{il}u_l\right|(x_0)\frac{|u|^3}{A_0}(x_0).$$

By applying maximum principle and following the same deduction in  (formulas (2.18) and (2.20) there), we have

(34)
$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill 0& & F^{ij}H_{ij}=F^{ij}\left\{\left(2\frac{\rho _i\rho _j}{\rho }+\rho _{ij}\right)|u|^2+2\rho u_{lij}u_l+2\rho u_{il}u_{jl}\right\}\hfill \\ & & 2\underset{i,j,l}{}F^{ij}\rho u_{il}u_{jl}+\underset{j1}{}F^{jj}\left\{10nb_0^2|u|^2Ce^{inf_{B_1}u}|u|^2\frac{(n+2)^2}{A_0}\rho |u|^4\right\}\hfill \end{array}$$

where $`C`$ is a constant depending only on $`n,k,l`$, $`f_{C^1(B_1)}`$ and $`g_{C^3(B_1)}`$. Set $`\stackrel{~}{u}_{ij}=u_{ij}+S_{ij}`$. By (32), we have

$`{\displaystyle \underset{i,j,l}{}}F^{ij}u_{il}u_{jl}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{i,l}{}}F^{ii}\stackrel{~}{u}_{il}^2{\displaystyle \frac{n}{A_0^2}}|u|^4{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}F^{ii}.`$
This, together with (34), implies

$`{\displaystyle \underset{i,l}{}}F^{ii}\stackrel{~}{u}_{il}^2{\displaystyle \underset{j1}{}}F^{jj}\left\{10nb_0^2|u|^2+Ce^{inf_{B_1}u}|u|^2+{\displaystyle \frac{2(n+2)^2}{A_0}}\rho |u|^4\right\}.`$
Hence, the needed bound $`H(x_0)c_1(1+e^{2inf_{B_1}u})`$ can be reduced to the verification of the following:

Claim: There is a constant $`A_0`$ (depending only on $`k`$ and $`n`$) such that

(35)
$$\underset{i,j}{}F^{ii}\stackrel{~}{u}_{ij}^2A_0^{\frac{5}{8}}\underset{i}{}F^{ii}|u|^4.$$

This claim is just Claim 2.5 in . As in , the verification of the Claim is a crucial step to prove the Theorem.

Set $`\delta _0=A_0^{1/4}<0.1`$. We divide the set $`I=\{1,2,\mathrm{},n\}`$ as in  into two parts:

$$I_1=\{iI|u_i^2\delta _0|u|^2\}\text{ and }I_2=\{iI|u_i^2<\delta _0|u|^2\}.$$

Clearly, $`I_1`$ is non-empty.

Case 1. There is $`j_0`$ satisfying

(36)
$$\stackrel{~}{u}_{jj}^2\delta _0^2|u|^4\text{ and }u_j^2<\delta _0|u|^2.$$

We may assume that $`j_0=n`$. We have $`|w_{nn}+\frac{|u|^2}{2}|=|\stackrel{~}{u}_{nn}+u_n^2|<2\delta _0|u|^2`$ by (36). From (33) and (31), we have for any $`iI`$

$$\left|u_i(u_{ii}(|u|^2u_i^2))\underset{l}{}S_{il}u_l\right|=\left|\underset{l}{}u_{il}u_l\right|\delta _0^4|u|^3.$$

This, together with (32), implies

(37)
$$|u_i(u_{ii}(|u|^2u_i^2))|2\delta _0^4|u|^3,$$

which, in turn, implies

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \left|w_{ii}\frac{|u|^2}{2}\right|& =& \left|u_{ii}+u_i^2|u|^2+S_{ii}\right|3\delta _0^2|u|^2,\hfill \end{array}$$

for any $`iI_1`$. Using these inequalities, we can repeat the derivation of equation (2.38) in  to obtain

(38)
$$\underset{i,l}{}F^{ii}\stackrel{~}{u}_{il}^2\stackrel{~}{F}^1\frac{|u|^4}{4}\stackrel{~}{F}^1|u|^4+F^{nn}\frac{|u|^4}{4}+(132\delta _0^2)\frac{|u|^4}{4}\underset{i}{}F^{ii},$$

where $`\stackrel{~}{F}^1=\mathrm{max}_{iI_1}F^{ii}`$.

Recall that $`I_1`$ is necessarily non-empty. We may assume that $`i_0I_1`$ with $`\stackrel{~}{F}^1=F^{i_0i_0}`$. Without loss of generality, we assume that $`i_0=1`$. From above, we know $`w_{11}w_{nn}`$. By Lemma 5 below, we have $`F^{nn}\stackrel{~}{F}^{11}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{F}^{11}\frac{1}{2+c(n,k,l)}_lF^{ll}`$, because $`w_{11}>0`$. Hence, (38) implies that

$$\underset{i,l}{}F^{ii}\stackrel{~}{u}_{il}^2\{\frac{1}{4}\frac{1}{2(2+c(n,k,l))}32\delta _0^2\}\underset{i}{}F^{ii}|u|^4.$$

The inequality (35) then follows for this case by choosing $`A_0\left(\frac{128(2+c(n,k,l))}{c(n,k,l)}\right)^2.`$

Case 2. There is no $`jI`$ satisfying (36).

We may assume that there is $`i_0`$ such that $`\stackrel{~}{u}_{i_0i_0}^2\delta _0^2|u|^4`$, otherwise the claim is automatically true. Assume $`i_0=1`$. As in Case 4 in , we have $`u_1^2(12\delta _0)|u|^2`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{u}_{jj}^2+u_j^2(|u|^2u_j^2)\delta _0^2|u|^4`$ for $`j>1`$. From equation (2.50) in  and Lemma 5, we have

$`{\displaystyle \underset{i,l}{}}F^{ii}\stackrel{~}{u}_{il}^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}F^{ii}\left\{\stackrel{~}{u}_{ii}^2+u_i^2(|u|^2u_i^2)\right\}`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i2}{}}F^{ii}(\stackrel{~}{u}_{ii}^2+u_i^2(|u|^2u_i^2))`$
$``$ $`\delta _0^2|u|^4{\displaystyle \underset{i2}{}}F^{ii}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\delta _0^2|u|^4{\displaystyle \underset{i1}{}}F^{ii}`$
The Claim is verified, so the local gradient estimate (27) is proved.

###### Lemma 5.

If $`\lambda _i\lambda _j`$, then $`F^{ii}F^{jj}`$. If $`(nk+1)(nl+1)>2(n+1)`$ and $`\lambda _1>0`$, then there is a positive constant $`c(n,k,l)`$ such that

$$\underset{i}{}F^{ii}(2+c(n,k,l))F^{11}.$$

Proof. The first statement follows from the monotonicity of $`\sigma _{l1}`$ and $`\frac{\sigma _{k1}}{\sigma _{l1}}`$, since

$$F^{ii}=F^{}\sigma _{l1}(\mathrm{\Lambda }_i)\{\sigma _l(\mathrm{\Lambda })\frac{\sigma _{k1}}{\sigma _{l1}}(\mathrm{\Lambda }_i)\sigma _k(\mathrm{\Lambda })\}.$$

Similarly, we have

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill F^{11}& =& F^{}\sigma _{l1}(\mathrm{\Lambda }_1)\{\sigma _l(\mathrm{\Lambda })\frac{\sigma _{k1}}{\sigma _{l1}}(\mathrm{\Lambda }_1)\sigma _k(\mathrm{\Lambda })\}\hfill \\ & & F^{}\sigma _{l1}(\mathrm{\Lambda })\{\sigma _l(\mathrm{\Lambda })\frac{\sigma _{k1}}{\sigma _{l1}}(\mathrm{\Lambda })\sigma _k(\mathrm{\Lambda })\}.\hfill \end{array}$$

From the Newton-MacLaurin inequality (14),

$$q_0:=(nk+1\alpha _0)\sigma _l(\mathrm{\Lambda })\sigma _{k1}(\mathrm{\Lambda })(nl+1\alpha _0)\sigma _k(\mathrm{\Lambda })\sigma _{l1}(\mathrm{\Lambda })0,$$

where $`\alpha _0=\frac{(nk+1)(nl+1)}{n+1}`$. Hence, we have

$`{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}F^{ii}`$ $`=`$ $`F^{}\{(nk+1)\sigma _l(\mathrm{\Lambda })\sigma _{k1}(\mathrm{\Lambda })(nl+1)\sigma _k(\mathrm{\Lambda })\sigma _{l1}(\mathrm{\Lambda })`$
$`=`$ $`F^{}\{q_0+\alpha _0[s_l(\mathrm{\Lambda })\sigma _{k1}(\mathrm{\Lambda })\sigma _k(\mathrm{\Lambda })\sigma _{l1}(\mathrm{\Lambda })]\}`$
$``$ $`\alpha _0F^{11}.`$
The Lemma follows with $`c(n,k,l)=2\alpha _0>0`$.

## 4. The global convergence of flow (13)

We treat flow (13) in this section. If $`g=e^{2u}g_0`$, one may compute that

$$\sigma _k(g)=e^{2ku}\sigma _k\left(^2u+dudu\frac{|u|^2}{2}g_0+S_{g_0}\right).$$

Equation (13) can be written in the following form

(39)
$$\{\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill 2\frac{du}{dt}& =& \mathrm{log}\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}\left(^2u+dudu\frac{|u|^2}{2}g_0+S_{g_0}\right)+2(kl)u\mathrm{log}r_{k,l}(g)\hfill \\ \hfill u(0)& =& u_0.\hfill \end{array}$$

In these equations and below, the norms and covariant derivatives are with respect to the background metric $`g_0`$.

Because $`g_0\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$, the highest order term on the right hand side is uniformly elliptic. Consequently, the short time existence of flow (13) follows from the standard parabolic theory. We want to prove the long time existence and convergence. Let

$$T^{}=sup\{T_0>0|\text{(}\text{13}\text{) exists in }[0,T_0]\text{ and }g(t)𝒞_k\text{ for }t[0.T_0]\}.$$

For any $`T<T^{}`$, we will establish a $`C^2`$ bound for the conformal factor $`u`$, which is independent of $`T`$. As in , we have a Harnack inequality

(40)
$$|u|c,$$

for some positive constant $`c`$ independent of $`T`$, see a complete proof in . But, as mentioned above, we can not deduce $`C^0`$ boundedness as in  because the flow (13) may not preserve the volume of the evolved metric $`g(t)`$. In order to to get $`C^1`$ bound we first use (40) to bound $`|u|^2`$.

###### Proposition 2.

There is a constant $`C>0`$ independent of $`T`$ such that

$$|^2u|C.$$

###### Proof.

Set

$$F=\mathrm{log}\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}\left(^2u+dudu\frac{|u|^2}{2}g_0+S_{g_0}\right).$$

By equation (39), $`F=2u_t2(kl)u\mathrm{log}r_{k,l}.`$ We only need to consider the case $`k>1`$. From the property of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$,

$$|\lambda _i|\mathrm{max}\{1,(n2)\}\underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}\lambda _j.$$

Therefore we only need to give a upper bound of $`\mathrm{\Delta }u`$ which dominates all other second order derivatives.

Consider $`G=\mathrm{\Delta }u+m|u|^2`$ on $`M\times [0,T]`$, where $`m`$ is a large constant which will be fixed later. Note that $`\mathrm{\Delta }u`$ is analyst’s Laplacian. Without loss of generality, we may assume that the maximum of $`G`$ on $`M\times [0,T]`$ achieves at a point $`(x_0,t_0)M\times (0,T]`$ and $`G(x_0,t_0)1`$. We may assume that at $`(x_0,t_0)`$

(41)
$$2\sigma _1(W)G\frac{1}{2}\sigma _1(W),$$

where $`W=^2u+dudu\frac{|u|^2}{2}g_0+S_{g_0}.`$ Consider everything in a small neighborhood near $`x_0`$. We may consider $`W`$ as a matrix with entry $`w_{ij}=u_{ij}+u_iu_j\frac{1}{2}|u|^2\delta _{ij}+S(g_0)_{ij}.`$ In the rest of the proof, $`c`$ denotes a positive constant independent of $`T`$, which may vary from line to line.

Since $`G`$ achieves its maximum at $`(x_0,t_0)`$, we have at this point

(42)
$$G_t=\underset{l}{}(u_{llt}+2mu_{lt}u_l)0,$$

and

(43)
$$G_i=\underset{l}{}(u_{lli}+2mu_{li}u_l)=0,i.$$

(43) and (40) imply that at $`(x_0,t_0)`$

(44)
$$|\underset{l}{}u_{lli}|cG.$$

By the Harnack inequality (40) and the fact $`|u_{ij}|G`$, we may assume that

(45)
$$|u_{lij}u_{ijl}|<c\text{ and }|u_{ijkl}u_{ijlk}|<cG,$$

where $`c`$ is a constant depending only on the background metric $`g_0`$. We may assume by choosing appropriate local orthonormal frames that the matrix $`(w_{ij})`$ at $`(x_0,t_0)`$ is diagonal. At the maximum point, $`G_{ij}`$ is non-positive definite. Set $`F^{ij}=\frac{F}{w_{ij}}.`$ Since $`g(t)=e^{2u(t)}g_0\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$, we know that the matrix $`(F^{ij})`$ is positive. Hence in view of (42)-(45) and the concavity of $`F`$ we have

(46)
$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill 0& & \underset{i,j}{}F^{ij}G_{ij}=F^{ij}(u_{llij}+2mu_{li}u_{lj}+2mu_{lij}u_l)\hfill \\ & & \underset{i,j,l}{}F^{ij}(u_{ijll}+2mu_{li}u_{lj}+2mu_{ijl}u_l)c\underset{i}{}F^{ii}G\hfill \\ & =& c\underset{i}{}F^{ii}G+\underset{i,j,l}{}F^{ij}\{w_{ijll}(u_iu_j\frac{1}{2}|u|^2\delta _{ij}+S(g_0)_{ij})_{ll}\hfill \\ & & +2mu_{li}u_{lj}+2mw_{ijl}u_l2mu_l(u_iu_j\frac{1}{2}|u|^2\delta _{ij}+S(g_0)_{ij})_l\}\hfill \\ & & \mathrm{\Delta }F+2m\underset{l}{}F_lu_l+\underset{i}{}F^{ii}u_{jl}^2+2(m1)\underset{i,l}{}F^{ii}u_{li}^2c\underset{i}{}F^{ii}G\hfill \\ & & \mathrm{\Delta }F+2m\underset{l}{}F_lu_l+\frac{1}{n}G^2\underset{i}{}F^{ii}+2(m1)\underset{i,l}{}F^{ii}u_{li}^2c\underset{i}{}F^{ii}G.\hfill \end{array}$$

From equation (39), $`F=2u_t2(kl)u\mathrm{log}r_{k,l}(g).`$ In view of (42) and (43), (46) yields

(47)
$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill 0& & 2(kl)G+\frac{1}{n}\underset{i}{}F^{ii}G^2+2(m1)\underset{i}{}F^{ii}u_{ii}c\underset{i}{}F^{ii}G\hfill \\ & & 2(kl)\mathrm{\Delta }u+\underset{i}{}F^{ii}G^2+2(m1)F^{ii}u_{ii}^2cF^{ii}G\hfill \\ & & \{2(kl)G+2(m1)F^{ii}u_{ii}^2\}+\frac{1}{n}\underset{i}{}F^{ii}(G^2cG).\hfill \end{array}$$

The Proposition follows from (40), (47) and Lemma 6 below.

###### Lemma 6.

There is a large constant $`m>0`$ such that

(48)
$$\frac{1}{2n}G^2\underset{i}{}F^{ii}+2(m1)\underset{i}{}F^{ii}w_{ii}^22(kl)G.$$

Proof. It is easy to check, from the Newton-MacLaurin inequality (14), that

(49)
$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill F^{ii}w_{ii}^2& =& \frac{\sigma _1(W)\sigma _k(W)(k+1)\sigma _{k+1}(W)}{\sigma _k(W)}\frac{\sigma _1(W)\sigma _l(W)(l+1)\sigma _{l+1}(W)}{\sigma _l(W)}\hfill \\ & =& (l+1)\frac{\sigma _{l+1}}{\sigma _l}(W)(k+1)\frac{\sigma _{k+1}}{\sigma _k}(W)c_{n,k,l}\frac{\sigma _{l+1}}{\sigma _l}(W),\hfill \end{array}$$

and

(50)
$$\underset{i}{}F^{ii}=(nk+1)\frac{\sigma _{k1}}{\sigma _k}(W)(nl+1)\frac{\sigma _{l1}}{\sigma _l}(W)\frac{\stackrel{~}{c}_{n,k,l}}{\sigma _1(W)},$$

where $`c_{n,k,l}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{c}_{n,k,l}`$ are two positive constant depending only on $`n,k`$ and $`l`$. From these two facts, we can prove the claim as follows. First, if

$$\frac{\stackrel{~}{c}_{n,k,l}}{4n}\frac{\sigma _1(W)\sigma _{k1}(W)}{\sigma _k(W)}4(kl),$$

then the claim follows from (50) and (41). Hence we may assume that

$$\frac{\sigma _1(W)\sigma _{k1}(W)}{\sigma _k(W)}c_{n,k,l}^{},$$

for some positive constant $`c_{n,k,l}^{}`$ depending only on $`n,k`$ and $`l`$. Together with the Newton-MacLaurin inequality, it implies

$$\frac{\sigma _{l+1}(W)}{\sigma _l(W)}\widehat{c}_{n,k,l}\frac{\sigma _k(W)}{\sigma _{k1}(W)}\widehat{c}_{n,k,l}c_{n,k,l}^{}\sigma _1(w),$$

which, in turn, together with (49) implies

$$\underset{i}{}F^{ii}w_{ii}^2c_{n,k,l}\frac{\sigma _{l+1}(W)}{\sigma _l(W)}c_{n,k,l}^1\sigma _1(W)\frac{1}{2}c_{n,k,l}^1G.$$

Hence, if we choose $`m`$ large, then the lemma is true.

Now we can prove the $`C^0`$ boundedness (and hence $`C^2`$ boundedness).

###### Proposition 3.

Let $`g=e^{2u}g_0`$ be a solution of flow (13) with $`\sigma _k(g(t))\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$ on $`M\times [0,T^{})`$. Then there is a constant $`c>0`$ depending only on $`v_0`$, $`g_0`$, $`k`$ and $`n`$ (independent of $`T^{}`$) such that

(51)
$$u(t)_{C^2}c,t[0,T^{}).$$

Proof. We only need to show the boundedness of $`|u|`$. First we consider the case $`ln/2`$. By Proposition 2 and the preservation of $`\sigma _l(g)𝑑g`$, we have

(52)
$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill c_l& =& _Me^{(2ln)u}\sigma _l\left(^2u+dudu\frac{|u|^2}{2}g_0+S_{g_0}\right)𝑑g_0\hfill \\ & & c_1_Me^{(2ln)u}𝑑g_0.\hfill \end{array}$$

If $`l<n/2`$, then (52), together with (40), implies that $`u<c`$ for some constant $`c>0`$. On the other hand, in this case Proposition 1 gives

$$vol(g)C\left(_M\sigma _l(g)𝑑g\right)^{\frac{n}{n2l}}=c_0C,$$

which, together with (40) implies $`u>c_1`$, hence $`|u|C`$ in this case.

If $`l>n/2`$, (52) gives a lower bound of $`u`$. Suppose there is no upper bound, we have a sequence of $`u`$, with $`u`$ and $`^2u`$ bounded, but $`supu`$ goes to infinity (so does $`infu`$). Set $`v=uinfu`$, so $`v`$ is bounded and so is the $`C^2`$ norm of $`v`$. But, for $`\stackrel{~}{g}=e^{2v}g_0`$, we get $`\stackrel{~}{F}_l(\stackrel{~}{g})`$ tends to $`0`$. Take a subsequence, we get $`\sigma _l(e^{2v^{}}g_0)=0`$ with $`v^{}`$ in $`C^{1,1}\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_k^+`$. This is a contradiction to Lemma 3.

Then we consider the case $`l=n/2`$. In this case, $`_{n/2}(g)`$ is constant. First it is easy to check that $`g_t=e^{2tu}g_0\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\frac{n}{2}}^+`$ when $`0t1`$ (using the fact $`(1,\mathrm{},1,1)\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{\frac{n}{2}}^+`$ when $`n`$ even). In particular, $`\sigma _{\frac{n}{2}}(g_t)>0`$ for $`t>0`$. From the expression of $`_{n/2}(g)`$,

$$sup(u)_M\sigma _{\frac{n}{2}}(g)𝑑g_{n/2}(g)inf(u)_M\sigma _{\frac{n}{2}}(g)𝑑g.$$

Since

$$_M\sigma _{\frac{n}{2}}(g)𝑑g=_M\sigma _{\frac{n}{2}}(g_0)𝑑g_0,$$

So we have

$$sup(u)_M\sigma _{\frac{n}{2}}(g_0)𝑑g_0_{n/2}(g)inf(u)_M\sigma _{\frac{n}{2}}(g_0)𝑑g_0.$$

Thus, $`inf(u)`$ is bounded from above and $`sup(u)`$ is bounded from below. By (40) again, $`u`$ is bounded from above and away from $`0`$. Now we have proved the boundedness of $`|u|`$ in all cases. Combining that with (40) and Proposition 2 gives a $`C^2`$ bound $`u`$ independent of $`T`$.

###### Proposition 4.

There is a constant $`C_0>0`$ independent of $`T`$ such that

$$\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g)(t)C_0,\text{ for }t[0,\mathrm{}).$$

Proof. We follow the similar argument in . Here we will make use of Lemma 2. We consider $`H=\mathrm{log}\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g)e^u`$ on $`M\times [0,T]`$ for any $`T<T^{}`$. From (13) and (19) we have

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \frac{dH}{dt}& =& \frac{1}{2}\text{tr}\{\stackrel{~}{T}_{k1,l1}(S_g)_g^2\mathrm{log}\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g)\}+(kl+\frac{1}{2}e^u)\left(\mathrm{log}\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g)\mathrm{log}r_{k,l}(g)\right)\hfill \\ & =& \frac{1}{2}\text{tr}\{\stackrel{~}{T}_{k1,l1}(S_g)_g^2(H+e^u)\}+(kl+\frac{1}{2}e^u)\left(\mathrm{log}\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g)\mathrm{log}r_{k,l}(g)\right).\hfill \end{array}$$

Without loss of generality, we may assume that the minimum of $`H`$ in $`M\times [0,T]`$ achieves at $`(x_0,t_0)M\times (0,T]`$. Let $`H_j`$ and $`H_{ij}`$ are the first and second derivatives with respect to the background metric $`g_0`$. At this point, we have $`\frac{dH}{dt}0`$, $`0=H_l=_{ij}F^{ij}w_{ijl}+e^uu_l`$ for all $`l`$, and $`(H_{ij})`$ is non-negative definite. Also we have $`(F^{ij})`$ is positive definite and

$$\underset{i,j}{}F^{ij}w_{ij}=\frac{1}{\sigma _k(g)}\frac{\sigma _k(g)}{w_{ij}}w_{ij}\frac{1}{\sigma _l(g)}\frac{\sigma _l(g)}{w_{ij}}w_{ij}=kl.$$

Recall that in local coordinates $`\stackrel{~}{T}_{k1,l1}^{ij}(S_g)=F^{ij}`$ and

$$\underset{i,j}{}F^{ij}(_g^2)_{ij}H=\underset{i,j}{}F^{ij}(H_{ij}+u_iH_j+u_jH_j\underset{l}{}u_lH_l\delta _{ij}).$$

It follows that at the point,

(53)
$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill 0& & H_t\frac{1}{2}\underset{i,j}{}F^{ij}H_{ij}\hfill \\ & =& \frac{1}{2}\text{tr}\{\stackrel{~}{T}_{k1,l1}(S_g)_g^2e^u\}+(kl+\frac{1}{2}e^u)\left(\mathrm{log}\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g)\mathrm{log}r_{k,l}(g)\right)\hfill \\ & =& \frac{1}{2}\underset{i,j}{}F^{ij}\{(e^u)_{ij}+u_i(e^u)_j+u_j(e^u)_iu_l(e^u)_l\delta _{ij}\}\hfill \\ & & +(kl+\frac{1}{2}e^u)\left(\mathrm{log}\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g)\mathrm{log}r_{k,l}(g)\right)\hfill \\ & =& \frac{e^u}{2}\underset{i,j}{}F^{ij}\{u_{ij}u_iu_j+|u|^2\delta _{ij}\}+(kl+\frac{1}{2}e^u)\left(\mathrm{log}\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g)\mathrm{log}r_{k,l}(g)\right)\hfill \\ & =& \frac{e^u}{2}\underset{i,j}{}F^{ij}\{w_{ij}+S_{ij}+\frac{1}{2}|u|^2\delta _{ij}\}+(kl+\frac{e^u}{2})\left(\mathrm{log}\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g)\mathrm{log}r_{k,l}(g)\right)\hfill \\ & & \frac{e^u}{2}\underset{i,j}{}F^{ij}\{w_{ij}+S_{ij}\}+(kl+\frac{1}{2}e^u)\left(\mathrm{log}\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g)\mathrm{log}r_{k,l}(g)\right)\hfill \\ & =& \frac{e^u}{2}\underset{i,j}{}F^{ij}S_{ij}+(kl+\frac{1}{2}e^u)\left(\mathrm{log}\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g)\mathrm{log}r_{k,l}(g)\right)\frac{kl}{2}e^u,\hfill \end{array}$$

where $`S_{ij}`$ are the entries of $`S(g_0)`$. Since $`S(g_0)\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$, by Lemma 2,

(54)
$$F^{ij}S_{ij}=\{\frac{1}{\sigma _k(g)}\frac{\sigma _k(g)}{w_{ij}}\frac{1}{\sigma _l(g)}\frac{\sigma _l(g)}{w_{ij}}\}S_{ij}(kl)e^{2u}\left(\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g_0)\right)^{\frac{1}{kl}}\left(\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g)\right)^{\frac{1}{kl}}.$$

By $`C^2`$ estimates, $`\mathrm{log}r_{k,l}(g)`$ is bounded from above, we have

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill 0& & \frac{(kl)e^u}{2}\left(\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g_0)\right)^{\frac{1}{kl}}\left(\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g)\right)^{\frac{1}{kl}}\hfill \\ & & +(kl+\frac{1}{2}e^u)\left(\mathrm{log}\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g)\mathrm{log}r_{k,l}(g)\right)\frac{kl}{2}e^u\hfill \\ & & c_1\left(\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g)\right)^{\frac{1}{kl}}+c_2\mathrm{log}\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g)c_3\hfill \end{array}$$

for positive constants $`c_1`$, $`c_2`$ and $`c_3`$ independent of $`T`$. It follows that there is a positive constant $`c_4`$ independent of $`T`$ such that

$$\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g)c_4,$$

at point $`(x_0,t_0)`$. Then the Proposition follows, as $`|u|`$ is bounded by Proposition 3.

Proof of Theorem 2. Now we can prove Theorem 2. First, from Propositions 3 and 4 we have $`T^{}=\mathrm{}`$. Then, by Krylov’s Theorem , the flow has $`C^{2,\alpha }`$ estimates. (20) implies that

$$_0^{\mathrm{}}_M(\sigma _k(g)r_{k,l}\sigma _l(g))^2𝑑g𝑑t<\mathrm{},$$

which, in turn, implies that there is a sequence $`\{t_l\}`$ such that

$$_M(\sigma _k(g)r_{k,l}\sigma _l(g))^2(t_l)𝑑g0$$

as $`t_l\mathrm{}`$. The above estimates imply that $`g(t_l)`$ converges in $`C^{2,\alpha }`$ to a conformal metric $`h`$, which is a solution of (6).

Now we want to use Simon’s argument  to prove that $`h`$ is the unique limit of flow (13) as in  (see also ). Since the arguments are essentially the same, here we only give a sketch. First, with the $`C^{2,\alpha }`$ regularity estimates (and higher regularity estimates follows from the standard parabolic theory) established for flow (13), one can show that,

$$\underset{t\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g(t))\beta _{C^{4,\alpha }(M)}=0,$$

for some positive constant $`\beta `$. It is clear that $`\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(h)=\beta `$. By Proposition 4 and the Newton-MacLaurin inequality, there is a constant $`c>1`$ such that $`c^1\sigma _l(g(t))c`$. We want to show that flow (13) is a pseudo-gradient flow, though it is not a gradient flow. The crucial step is to establish the “angle estimate” (55) for the $`L^2`$ gradient of some proper functionals. The estimate (55) enables one to conclude that the flow will converge to a unique stationary solution, we refer to  for the detailed argument.

Now we may switch the background metric to $`h`$ and all derivatives and norms are taken with respect to the metric $`h`$ (since we have all the a priori estimates for $`h`$).

Here we only give a proof for $`l<k<n/2`$. The proof for the other cases is similar after taking consideration of the corresponding functionals.

Consider a functional defined by

$$_{k,l}(g)=\left(\sigma _l(g)𝑑g\right)^{\frac{n2k}{n2l}}_M\sigma _k(g)𝑑g.$$

Its $`L^2`$-gradient is

$$_{k,l}=c_0((\sigma _k(g)\stackrel{~}{r}_{k,l}(g)\sigma _l(g))e^{nu},$$

where $`c_0`$ is a non-zero constant and $`\stackrel{~}{r}_{k,l}(g)`$ is given by

$$\stackrel{~}{r}_{k,l}(g):=\frac{_M\sigma _k(g)𝑑g}{_M\sigma _l(g)𝑑g},$$

which is different from $`r_{k,l}`$. But it is easy to check that $`r_{k,l}(t)\stackrel{~}{r}_{k,l}(t)0`$ as $`t\mathrm{}`$. Since $`\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g(t))`$ is very close to a constant for large $`t`$, from (20) we have

(55)
$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \frac{d}{dt}_{k,l}(g)& & c_M(\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g)r_{k,l})\left(\mathrm{log}\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g)\mathrm{log}r_{k,l}\right)\sigma _l(g)𝑑g\hfill \\ & & c\left(_M\left|\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g)r_{k,l}\right|^2\sigma _l(g)𝑑g_M\left|\mathrm{log}\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g)\mathrm{log}r_{k,l}\right|^2\sigma _l(g)𝑑g\right)^{1/2}\hfill \\ & & c\left(_M|\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g)r_{k,l}|^2\sigma _l(g)𝑑g\right)^{1/2}\left(_M|\frac{dg}{dt}|^2\sigma _l(g)𝑑g\right)^{1/2}\hfill \\ & & c\left(_M|\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g)\stackrel{~}{r}_{k,l}|^2\sigma _l(g)𝑑g\right)^{1/2}\left(_M|\frac{dg}{dt}|^2\sigma _l(g)𝑑g\right)^{1/2}\hfill \\ & & c\left(_M|\sigma _k(g)\stackrel{~}{r}_{k,l}\sigma _l(g)|^2\sigma _l(g)𝑑g\right)^{1/2}\left(_M|\frac{dg}{dt}|^2\sigma _l(g)𝑑g\right)^{1/2}\hfill \\ & & c\left(_M|_{k,l}|^2𝑑h\right)^{1/2}\left(_M|\frac{dg}{dt}|^2𝑑h\right)^{1/2},\hfill \end{array}$$

where $`c>0`$ is a constant varying from line to line. The angle estimate (55) means that flow (13) is a pseudo-gradient flow. Finally from (55) we can apply the argument given in  to show the uniqueness of the limit as in .

## 5. Proof of Theorem 1

From the flow approach we developed, we have

###### Proposition 5.

Let $`(M,g_0)`$ be a compact, connected and oriented locally conformally flat manifold with $`g_0\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$ and $`0l<kn`$. Let $`\stackrel{~}{}_k`$ defined as in (18), then there is $`g_E𝒞_k`$ satisfying equation (6) such that

$$0<\stackrel{~}{}_k(g_E)\stackrel{~}{}_k(g),$$

for any $`g𝒞_k`$ with $`\stackrel{~}{}_l(g_E)=\stackrel{~}{}_l(g).`$ Moreover, if $`(M,g_0)`$ is conformally equivalent to a space form, then $`(M,g_E)`$ is also a space form.

Proof. The case $`l=0`$ has been treated in Proposition 1. We may assume $`l1`$ in the rest of proof. When $`(M,g_0)`$ is conformally equivalent to a space form, then any solutions of (6) are metrics of constant sectional curvature (this can be proved using the method of moving plane of  as in , see Corollary 1.1 in  for more general statement), and hence have the same $`\stackrel{~}{}_k`$ if they have been the same $`\stackrel{~}{}_l`$. Hence the Proposition follows from Theorem 2.

Now we remain to consider the case $`k<n/2`$ and $`(M,g_0)`$ is not conformally equivalent to a space form. We will follow the same argument in the proof of Proposition 1. Here we need the local estimates in Theorem 3 for the quotient equation (6).

First we want to show

(56)
$$\underset{g𝒞_k,\stackrel{~}{}_l(g)=1}{inf}\stackrel{~}{}_k(g)=:\beta _0>0.$$

Suppose $`\beta _0=0`$. By the result for flow (13), there is a sequence $`g_i=e^{2u_i}g_0𝒞_k`$ with $`\stackrel{~}{}_l(g_i)=1`$ and

$$\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(g_i)=\beta _i,\underset{i\mathrm{}}{lim}\beta _i=0,$$

The scaled metric $`\stackrel{~}{g}_i=e^{2\stackrel{~}{u}_i}g_0`$ with $`\stackrel{~}{u}_i=u_i\frac{1}{2(kl)}\mathrm{log}\beta _i`$ satisfies

(57)
$$\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(^2\stackrel{~}{u}_i+d\stackrel{~}{u}_id\stackrel{~}{u}_i\frac{|\stackrel{~}{u}_i|^2}{2}g_0+S_{g_0})=e^{2(kl)\stackrel{~}{u}_i}.$$

By Proposition 1,

$$Cvol(\stackrel{~}{g}_i)^{\frac{n2l}{n}}\stackrel{~}{}_l(\stackrel{~}{g}_i)=\beta _{i}^{}{}_{}{}^{\frac{n2l}{2(kl)}}0\text{ as }i\mathrm{},$$

Since $`vol(\stackrel{~}{g}_i)`$ is tending to $`0`$, by Corollary 2,

$$m_i:=\underset{M}{inf}\stackrel{~}{u}_i+\mathrm{}\text{as}i\mathrm{}.$$

Now at the minimum point $`x_i`$ of $`\stackrel{~}{u}_i`$, by equation (57),

$$\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(S_{g_0})\frac{\sigma _k}{\sigma _l}(^2\stackrel{~}{u}_i+d\stackrel{~}{u}_id\stackrel{~}{u}_i\frac{|\stackrel{~}{u}_i|^2}{2}g_0+S_{g_0})=e^{2(kl)m_i}0.$$

This is a contradiction to the fact that $`g_0\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$, proving (56).

Finally we prove the existence of an extremal metric in this case. From above argument, there is a minimization sequence $`g_i𝒞_k`$, with $`\stackrel{~}{}_l(g)=1`$, and $`\frac{\sigma _k(g_i)}{\sigma _l(g_i)}=\beta _i,`$ with $`\beta _i`$ decreasing and bound below by a positive constant. As $`(M,g_0)`$ is not conformally equivalent to $`𝕊^n`$ by assumption, it follows from Theorem 1.3 in  (see also ) that the metrics converge (by taking a subsequence) to some $`g_E`$ which attains the infimum $`C_S`$.

Proof of $`(`$B$`)`$ of Theorem 1. The cases $`l=n/2`$ and $`k=n/2`$ were considered in  and . Hence we assume that $`kn/2`$ and $`ln/2`$. Let us consider

$$_{k,l}(g)=\left(\sigma _l(g)𝑑g\right)^{\frac{n2k}{n2l}}_M\sigma _k(g)𝑑g.$$

Since $`_{k,l}`$ is invariant under the transformation $`g`$ to $`e^{2a}g`$ for any constant $`a`$, Proposition 5 implies that for any $`g𝒞_k`$

$$_{k,l}(g)_{k,l}(g_E)=:C(n,k,l).$$

It is clear that $`C(n,k,l)`$ depends only on $`n,k,l`$.

Let $`c_0=_{k,l}(g_E)`$. From Proposition 5, we have

(58)
$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill _M\sigma _k(g)𝑑g& & C(n,k,l)\left(_M\sigma _l(g)𝑑g\right)^{\frac{n2k}{n2l}}\hfill \\ & =& C(n,k,l)\left(_M\sigma _l(g)𝑑g\right)^{\gamma k}\left(_M\sigma _l(g)𝑑g\right)^{\frac{k}{l}},\hfill \end{array}$$

where $`\gamma =\frac{n2k}{k(n2l)}\frac{1}{l}.`$ It is clear that $`\gamma >0`$ when $`l>n/2`$ and $`\gamma <0`$ when $`l<n/2`$.

We first consider the case $`l>n/2`$. In this case, by Proposition 1 we have

$$_M\sigma _l(g)𝑑gc_1vol(g)^{\frac{n2l}{n}},$$

where $`c_1=_l(g_e)`$. It follows that

(59)
$$\left(_M\sigma _l(g)𝑑g\right)^\gamma c_0^\gamma vol(g)^{\frac{lk}{kl}}.$$

Hence

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill (_k(g))^{1/k}& =& \left(vol(g)^{\frac{n2k}{n}}_M\sigma _k(g)𝑑g\right)^{\frac{1}{k}}\hfill \\ & & c_0^{\frac{1}{k}}\left(vol(g)^{\frac{n2l}{n}}_M\sigma _l(g)𝑑g\right)^{\frac{1}{l}}\hfill \\ & =& c_0^{\frac{1}{k}}(_l(g))^{1/l}.\hfill \end{array}$$

The equality holds if and only if $`g`$ is a metric of constant sectional curvature.

Consider the case $`l<n/2`$. In this case, by Proposition 1 again we have

$$_M\sigma _l(g)𝑑gc_1vol(g)^{\frac{n2l}{n}},$$

where $`c_1=_l(g_e)`$. Since $`\gamma <0`$, we have (59). The same argument given in the previous case gives the same conclusion.

Finally, since $`kn/2`$, $`(M,g_0)`$ is conformally equivalent to a space form (). The existence of the extremal metric which attains the equality case follows from Proposition 5. And the constant $`C(n,k,l)`$ is easy to calculate.

Proof of $`(`$C$`)`$ of Theorem 1. Let us first consider the case $`l<n/2`$. Let $`g𝒞_{n/2}`$. Choose $`a`$ such that $`_M\sigma _l(e^{2a}g)𝑑vol(e^{2a}g)=_M\sigma _l(g_0)𝑑g_0.`$ It is easy to see that

$$a=\frac{1}{n2l}\{\mathrm{log}_M\sigma _l(g)𝑑g\mathrm{log}_M\sigma _l(g_0)𝑑g_0\}.$$

By Proposition 5, we have

$`_{n/2}(g)`$ $`=`$ $`_{n/2}(e^{2a}g)+a{\displaystyle _M}\sigma _{n/2}(g)𝑑g`$
$``$ $`a{\displaystyle _M}\sigma _{n/2}(g_0)𝑑g_0`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n2}}{\displaystyle _M}\sigma _{n/2}(g_0)𝑑g_0\left\{\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle _M}\sigma _l(g)𝑑g\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle _M}\sigma _l(g_0)𝑑g_0\right\}.`$
This proves the Theorem for the case $`l<n/2`$.

Now we consider the case $`l>n/2`$. 5. For any $`g𝒞_l`$ we choose

$$a=(_M\sigma _{n/2}(g)𝑑g)^1_{n/2}(g)$$

such that $`_{n/2}(e^{2a}g)=_{n/2}(g_0)`$. Recall that $`\stackrel{~}{}_{n/2}=_{n/2}`$. By Proposition 5 again, we have

$`\stackrel{~}{}_l(g)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n2l}}{\displaystyle _M}\sigma _l(g)𝑑g`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n2l}}e^{(2ln)a}{\displaystyle _M}\sigma _l(e^{2a}g)𝑑vol(e^{2a}g)`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n2l}}e^{(2ln)a}{\displaystyle _M}\sigma _l(g_0)𝑑g_0`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n2l}}\mathrm{exp}\left\{(n2l)\left({\displaystyle _M}\sigma _{n/2}(g)𝑑g\right)^1_{n/2}(g)\right\}{\displaystyle _M}\sigma _l(g_0)𝑑g_0.`$
Since $`(M,g_0)`$ is conformally equivalent to a space form in this case, the existence of the extremal metric can be proved along the same line as in part (B) of the Theorem. Note that since $`n`$ is even, $`(M,g_0)`$ is the standard sphere. The computation of $`C_{MT}`$ is straightforward.

Proof of $`(`$A$`)`$ of Theorem 1. Inequality (5) follows from (56) in the proof of Proposition 5. The existence of the extremal metric has also proved there. As for inequality (7), since its proof is of different spirit and inequality itself is of independent interest, we will devote it in the next section (Theorem 4). The constant $`C_{S,k,l}(𝕊^n)`$ in (7) can be computed easily.

## 6. The best constant

In this section, we address the question of the best constant in part (A) of Theorem 1. As in the Yamabe problem (i.e., $`k=1`$ and $`l=0`$), for $`0l<k<n/2`$ we define

$$Y_{k,l}(M,[g_0])=\underset{g𝒞_k}{inf}(_l(g))^{\frac{n2k}{n2l}}_k(g)=\underset{g𝒞_k}{inf}(_M\sigma _l(g)𝑑g)^{\frac{n2k}{n2l}}_M\sigma _k(g)𝑑g.$$

It is clear that $`Y_{k,l}(M,[g_0])=C_s^{n2k}`$. In this section we prove

###### Theorem 4.

For any compact, oriented locally conformally flat manifold $`(M,g_0)`$, we have

(60)
$$Y_{k,l}(M,[g_0])Y_{k,l}(𝕊^n,g_{𝕊^n}),$$

where $`g_{𝕊^n}`$ is the standard metric of the unit sphere.

When $`k=1`$ and $`l=0`$, this was proven by Aubin (e.g., see ) for general compact manifolds. To prove Theorem 4 we need to construct a sequence of “blow-up” functions which belong to $`𝒞_k`$. This is a delicate part of the problem.

We need two Lemmas.

###### Lemma 7.

Let $`D`$ be the unit disk in $`^n`$ and $`ds^2`$ the standard Euclidean metric. Let $`g_0=e^{2u_0}ds^2`$ be a metric on $`D`$ and $`g_0\mathrm{\Gamma }_k`$ with $`k<n/2`$. Then there is a conformal metric $`g=e^{2u}ds^2`$ on $`D\backslash \{0\}`$ of positive $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k`$-curvature with the following properties:

* $`\sigma _k(g)>0`$ in $`D\backslash \{0\}`$.
* $`u(x)=u_0(x)`$ for $`r=|x|(r_0,1]`$.
* $`u(x)=a+\mathrm{log}r`$ for $`r=|x|(0,r_3)`$ and some constant $`a`$.

for some constants $`r_0`$ and $`r_3`$ with $`0<r_3<r_0<1`$.

Proof. Let $`v`$ be a function on $`D`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{g}=e^{2v}g_0`$. By the transformation formula of the Schouten tensor, we have

(61)
$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill S(\stackrel{~}{g})_{ij}& =& _{ij}^2(v+u_0)+_i(v+u_0)_j(v+u_0)\frac{1}{2}|(v+u_0)|^2\delta _{ij}\hfill \\ & =& _{ij}^2v+_iv_jv+_iv_ju_0+_jv_iu_0\hfill \\ & & +(\frac{1}{2}|v|^2+vu_0)\delta _{ij}+S_{g_0}\hfill \end{array}$$

Here $``$ and $`^2`$ are the first and the second derivatives with respect to the standard metric $`ds^2`$. Let $`r=|x|`$. We want to find a function $`v=v(r)`$ with $`\stackrel{~}{g}\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$ and

$$v^{}=\frac{\alpha (r)}{r},$$

where $`\alpha =1`$ near $`0`$ and $`\alpha =0`$ near $`1`$. From (61) we have

(62) $`S(\stackrel{~}{g})_{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\alpha \alpha ^2}{2r^2}}\delta _{ij}+\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^{}}{r}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^22\alpha }{r^2}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{x_ix_j}{r^2}}+S(g_0)_{ij}+O(|u_0|){\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{r}},`$
where $`O(|u_0|)`$ is a term bounded by a constant $`C_1`$ depending only on $`\mathrm{max}|u_0|`$. Let $`A(r)`$ be an $`n\times n`$ matrix with entry $`a_{ij}=S(\stackrel{~}{g})_{ij}S(g_0)_{ij}`$. Hence

$$\sigma _k(\stackrel{~}{g})=e^{2k(v+u_0)}\sigma _k\left(A+S(g_0)\right).$$

To our aim, we need to find $`\alpha `$ such that $`A+S(g_0)\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$. Let $`\epsilon (0,1/2)`$ and $`r_0=\mathrm{min}\{\frac{1}{2},C_1\epsilon \}`$. We will choose $`\alpha `$ such that

(63)
$$\alpha (r)[0,1]\text{ and }\alpha (r)=0,\text{ for }r[r_0,1].$$

Since $`\sigma _k(\stackrel{~}{g})=e^{2k(v+u_0)}\sigma _k(A(r)+S(g_0))`$, we want to find $`\alpha `$ such that $`\sigma _k(A(r)+S(g_0))>0`$. It is clear to see that for $`r[0,r_0]`$

$$A(r)\left(\frac{2\alpha \alpha ^2\epsilon \alpha }{2r^2}\delta _{ij}+\left(\frac{\alpha ^{}}{r}+\frac{\alpha ^22\alpha }{r^2}\right)\frac{x_ix_j}{r^2}\right),$$

as a matrix. This implies that

(64)
$$\sigma _k(A(r))\frac{(n1)!}{k!(nk)!}\left(\frac{2\alpha \alpha ^2\epsilon \alpha }{2r^2}\right)^k\left(n2k+2\frac{r\alpha ^{}\epsilon \alpha }{2\alpha \alpha ^2\epsilon \alpha }\right).$$

One can easily check that for any small $`\delta >0`$,

(65)
$$\alpha (r)=\frac{2(1\epsilon )\delta }{\delta +r^{\frac{1\epsilon }{2}}}$$

is a solution of

$$(2\epsilon )\alpha \alpha ^2=4(r\alpha ^{}\epsilon \alpha ).$$

Now we can finish our construction of $`\alpha `$. Since $`S(g_0)\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$, by the openness of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$ we can choose $`r_1(0,r_0)`$ and an non-increasing function $`\alpha :[r_1,r_0][0,1)`$ such that $`\sigma _k(\stackrel{~}{g})>0`$ and $`\alpha (r_1)>0`$. Now we choose a suitable $`\delta >0`$ and $`\alpha `$ in the form (65).Then find $`r_2(0,r_1)`$ with $`\alpha (r_2)=1`$. It is clear that $`\sigma _k(A(r))>0`$ on $`[r_2,r_1]`$. Define $`\alpha (r)=1`$ on $`[0,r_2]`$. We may smooth $`\alpha `$ such that the new resulted conformal metric $`g`$ satisfying all conditions in Lemma 7.

###### Remark 1.

From Lemma 7, one can prove that the connected sum of two locally conformally flat manifolds $`(M_1,g_1)`$ and $`(M_2,g_2)`$ with $`g_1,g_2\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$ ($`k<n/2)`$ admits a metric in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$. This is also true for general manifolds. Namely, the connected sum of two compact manifolds $`(M_1,g_1)`$ and $`(M_2,g_2)`$ with $`g_1,g_2\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$ ($`k<n/2)`$ admits a metric in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^+`$. The proof is given in .

###### Lemma 8.

For any small constants $`\delta >0`$ and $`\epsilon >0`$, there exists a function $`u:^n\backslash \{0\}0`$ satisfying:

* The metric $`g=e^{2u}dx^2`$ has positive $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k`$-curvature.
* $`u=\mathrm{log}(1+|x|^2)+b_0`$ for $`|x|\delta `$, i.e., $`(\{x^n||x|\delta \},g)`$ is a part of a sphere.
* $`u=\mathrm{log}|x|`$ for $`|x|\delta _1`$, i.e., $`(\{x^n|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}<|x|\delta _1\},g)`$ is a cylinder.
* $`vol(B_\delta \backslash B_{\delta _1},g)C\delta ^{\frac{2n}{1\epsilon _0}}.`$
* $`_{B_\delta \backslash B_{\delta _1}}\sigma _k(g)𝑑vol(g)C\delta ^{\frac{2(n2k)}{1\epsilon _0}}`$, for any $`k<n/2`$,

where $`C`$ is a constant independent of $`\delta `$, $`\delta _1=\delta ^{\frac{3\epsilon _0}{1\epsilon _0}}`$ and $`b_0\frac{3\epsilon _0}{1\epsilon _0}\mathrm{log}\delta `$.

Proof. Let $`\delta (0,1)`$ be any small constant. For any small constant $`\epsilon _0>0`$, we define $`u`$ by

$$u(r)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{log}(1+r^2)+b_0,\hfill & r\delta \hfill \\ \frac{2}{1\epsilon _0}\mathrm{log}\frac{1+\delta ^{3\epsilon _0}r^{(1\epsilon _0)}}{2}+\frac{3\epsilon _0}{1\epsilon _0}\mathrm{log}\delta \hfill & r(\delta _1,\delta )\hfill \\ \mathrm{log}r,\hfill & r\delta _1,\hfill \end{array},$$

where $`\delta _1=\delta ^{\frac{3\epsilon _0}{1\epsilon _0}}`$ and

$$b_0=\mathrm{log}(1+\delta ^2)\frac{2}{1\epsilon _0}\mathrm{log}\frac{1+\delta ^2}{2}+\frac{3\epsilon _0}{1\epsilon _0}\mathrm{log}\delta .$$

As in the proof of Lemma 5, we write $`u^{}(r)=\frac{\alpha (r)}{r}`$. It is easy to see that $`\alpha :_+_+`$ by

$$\alpha (r)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{2r^2}{1+r^2},\hfill & r\delta ,\hfill \\ \frac{2\delta ^{3\epsilon _0}}{\delta ^{3\epsilon _0}+r^{1\epsilon _0}},\hfill & r(\delta _1,\delta ),\hfill \\ 1,\hfill & r\delta _1.\hfill \end{array}$$

One can check all conditions in the Lemma, except the smoothness of $`u`$, which is $`C^{1,1}`$. We first check (1). By a direct computation, see for example (13), we have

$$\sigma _k(e^{2u}|dx|^2)=e^{2ku(r)}\frac{(n1)!}{k!(nk)!}\left(\frac{2\alpha \alpha ^2}{2r^2}\right)^k\left(n2k+2\frac{r\alpha ^{}}{2\alpha \alpha ^2}\right).$$

In the interval $`(\delta _1,\delta )`$, $`\alpha (0,2)`$ satisfies

$$\frac{2r\alpha ^{}}{2\alpha \alpha ^2}=(1\epsilon _0).$$

Since $`k<n/2`$, we have $`\sigma _k(e^{2u}|dx|^2)>0`$. One can also directly to check (4) and (5). Here we only check (5). A direct computation gives

$`{\displaystyle _{B_\delta \backslash B_{\delta _1}}}\sigma _k(g)𝑑vol(g)`$ $``$ $`c{\displaystyle _{\delta _1}^\delta }e^{(n2k)u(r)}r^{2k}r^{n1}𝑑r`$
$``$ $`c\delta ^{(n2k)\frac{3\epsilon _0}{1\epsilon _0}}{\displaystyle _{\delta _1}^\delta }r^{n2k1}𝑑r`$
$``$ $`c\delta ^{\frac{2(n2k)}{1\epsilon _0}}.`$
From our construction, we only have $`uC^{1,1}`$. But, for $`\delta >0`$ fixed, we can smooth $`\alpha `$ so that $`uC^{\mathrm{}}`$ satisfies all conditions (1)-(5).

Proof of Theorem 4. Let $`pM`$ and $`U`$ a neighborhood of $`p`$ such that $`(U,g)`$ is conformally flat, namely $`(U,g)=(D,e^{2u_0}|dx|^2)`$. Applying Lemma 7, we obtain a conformal metric $`u`$ satisfying conditions 1)-3) in Lemma 7 with constants $`r_0,r_3`$ and $`a`$. By adding a constant we may assume $`a=0`$. Now applying Lemma 8 for any small constant $`\delta >0`$ we have a conformal metric $`g_\delta =e^{2u_\delta }|dx|^2`$ on $`^n\backslash \{0\}`$. Consider the rescaled function

$$\stackrel{~}{u}_\delta =u_\delta (\frac{\delta _1}{r_3}x)\mathrm{log}\frac{\delta _1}{r_3}.$$

Now $`u`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{u}_\delta `$ are the same in $`\{0<|x|<r_3\}`$. Consider the following conformal transformation

$$f(x)=\frac{r_3^2}{2}\frac{x}{|x|^2},$$

which maps $`\{r_3/2|x|r_3\}`$ into itself and maps one of boundary components to another with opposite orientations. Now we define a new function on $`M`$ by

$$w_\delta (x)=\{\begin{array}{cc}0,\hfill & |x|r_0,\hfill \\ uu_0,\hfill & r_3/2|x|r_0,\hfill \\ \stackrel{~}{u}_\delta (f(x))+2\mathrm{log}|x|\mathrm{log}\frac{r_3^2}{2}u_0,\hfill & |x|r_3/2.\hfill \end{array}$$

Since $`u`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{u}_\delta `$ are the same in $`\{0<|x|<r_3\}`$, it clear that $`w_\delta (x)`$ is smooth on $`M`$. Consider the conformal metric $`g_\delta =e^{2w_\delta }g`$ and compute, using Lemmas 7 and 8

$`{\displaystyle _M}\sigma _k(g_\delta )𝑑vol(g_\delta )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\{|x|r_3/2\}}}\sigma _k(g_\delta )𝑑g_\delta +O(1)`$
$`=`$ $`e^{(n2k)b_0}{\displaystyle _{^n\backslash \{|x|\delta \}}}\sigma _k(g_{𝕊^n})𝑑vol(g_{𝕊^n})+O(1)\delta ^{\frac{2(n2k)}{1\epsilon _0}}`$
$`=`$ $`\delta ^{\frac{3\epsilon _0}{1\epsilon _0}(n2k)}{\displaystyle _{^n\backslash \{|x|\delta \}}}\sigma _k(g_{𝕊^n})𝑑vol(g_{𝕊^n})+o(\delta ^{\frac{3\epsilon _0}{1\epsilon _0}(n2k)})`$
and

$$_M\sigma _l(g_\delta )𝑑vol(g_\delta )=\delta ^{\frac{3\epsilon _0}{1\epsilon _0}(n2l)}vol(^n\backslash \{|x|\delta \},g_{𝕊^n})+o(\delta ^{\frac{3\epsilon _0}{1\epsilon _0}(n2l)}),$$

where $`g_{𝕊^n}=\frac{1}{(1+|x|^2)^2}|dx|^2`$ is the standard metric of the sphere and $`O(1)`$ is a term bounded by a constant independent of $`\delta `$. Now it is readily to see

$$Y_{k,l}(M)\underset{\delta 0}{lim}Y_{k,l}(g_\delta )Y_{k,l}(𝕊^n),$$

as $`\delta 0`$.


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# Nominal doping and partition of doped holes between planar and apical orbitals in La2-xSrxCuO4

## I  Introduction

Cuprate high temperature superconductors are doped Mott insulators. The novel superconductivity appears at doping levels just beyond the insulator-metal (IM) transition. The insulating behavior of the undoped endmember is understood to be due to electron correlation effects in the half-filled planar Cu$`d_{x^2y^2}`$–O$`p_\alpha `$ ($`\alpha =x,y`$) anti-bonding band. The phase diagram of the cuprates can be interpreted in terms of holes doped into this planar band. For example, in the system La2-xSrxCuO4 it is assumed that one hole enters this band per strontium atom. This paradigm for the doping has hardly been questioned and a multitude of papers exist implicitly assuming this behavior. The La2-xSrxCuO4 system is archetypal since it is a single layer system which can be straightforwardly doped over a wide range. The resulting phase diagram is thought to exhibit features that are universal to the cuprates. However, as a result of recent ab initio electronic band structure calculations, Perry, Tahir-Kheli and Goddard (PTG) perry;prb02  have suggested a new model for the doping in the La2-xSrxCuO4 system. In this case the doped holes reside in localized states on the CuO6 octahedra situated next to the dopant strontium ions. Furthermore, the doped charge resides principally in the Cu$`d_{3z^2r^2}`$–O$`p_z`$ orbitals (i.e., the out-of-plane bonds). Coincidentally a structural distortion occurs such that the local Jahn-Teller (JT) distortion, that results in the long Cu-O apical bond, is destroyed. A flat impurity band forms in the gap. The IM transition then occurs on increased doping in a manner similar to doped semiconductors by percolation of the doped impurities. These calculations were originally motivated by XAFS measurements that observed a distorted environment of the octahedra in the vicinity of dopant ions haske;prb97 . This new way of understanding the doping, if it is right, clearly will result in a paradigm shift in our understanding of cuprate physics. It is thus of the greatest importance to test the hypothesis experimentally. A rather direct probe of this doping mechanism is the structure because it involves the local destruction of JT elongated bonds. The $`average`$ Cu-O bond length along $`z`$ will thus shorten with doping and the width of the bond-length distribution for this bond will increase reflecting the increased disorder. Despite detailed structural studies of this system radae;prb94i  the temperature and doping dependence of these parameters has not been reported. In this paper we investigate whether there is evidence supporting this new doping paradigm in both the average crystal structure, and the local structure as measured using the atomic pair distribution function (PDF) technique billi;cc04 . We reexamine the extensive earlier structural data of Radaelli to extract the desired parameters. We have also analyzed new neutron powder diffraction data using Rietveld refinement and PDF refinement. We find that the data qualitatively agree with the predictions of the Perry et al.perry;prb02 . However, a more quantitative analysis, including evaluating the bond valences as a function of doping of the in-plane and apical Cu-O bonds, indicates that doped charge is predominantly residing in the planar bonds suggesting the existing paradigm for doping is valid.

## II  Experimental

This study reexamines the extensive published data of Radaelli et al.radae;prb94i  to extract as a function of doping the interesting parameters of the plane copper to apical oxygen bond length, $`r_{CuO2}`$ and the short lanthanum/strontium to apical oxygen bond length, $`r_{La/SrO2}`$. These parameters were determined from the reported fractional coordinates and lattice parameters. Also important is the doping dependence of the copper to in-plane oxygen bond length, $`r_{CuO1}`$, which was presented previously radae;prb94i  but is reexamined here. To check the PTG prediction we also need the anisotropic displacement parameter along the $`z`$-axis of the apical oxygen, $`U_{33}`$(O2). This was not published in radae;prb94i  so we have used recently collected neutron powder diffraction data of our own from a less extensive set of samples. Samples were synthesized using solid state methods and loose powders of $`10`$ g sealed in vanadium cylinders were measured at 10 K a the GEM diffractometer at the ISIS neutron source. Details of sample synthesis, characterization and measurement are reported elsewhere bozin;prb99 ; bozin;phd03 . Rietveld refinements were carried out on the data using the program GSAS larso;laur94 . The data were also corrected for experimental effects and normalized to obtain the atomic pair distribution function egami;b;utbp03  (PDF) using the program PDFgetN peter;jac00 . The PDF is the Fourier transform of the normalized corrected powder diffraction data. It utilizes both Bragg and diffuse scattering and contains information about the local structure billi;cc04 ; egami;b;utbp03 . Structural models were refined to the PDFs using the program PDFFIT proff;jac99 . To check for consistency, the same parameters were varied in the PDF and Rietveld refinements. An example of the measured PDF from the undoped sample is shown in Figure 1 with the best fit model-PDF plotted on top. The PDF allows us to explore models that contain non-periodic defects such as those proposed by PTG. The PDF was calculated from a supercell model with the doping induced defects discussed by PTG. This was then used as simulated data and fit using the usual long-range orthorhombic (LTO) radae;prb94i  structural model. In this way it was possible to estimate the size of the enlarged displacement factors that would result from the presence of the doping induced disorder described by PTG. In Perry et al. perry;prb02 , for simplicity, no octahedral tilts were considered. In the present case we must compare resulting models with real data and so the doping induced defects described in perry;prb02  were superimposed on the background of octahedral tilts observed in the undoped endmember.

## III  Results and Discussion

The qualitative predictions for the evolution of the average structure with doping in the scenario of Perry et al. perry;prb02  are: (1) decrease in the average $`r_{CuO2}`$ due to the local destruction of Jahn-Teller distortions at Cu3+ sites; (2) increase in the $`U_{33}`$(O2) with doping because of the coexistence of Jahn-Teller distorted and non-Jahn-Teller distorted octahedra; (3) increase in the average $`r_{La/SrO(2)}`$ distance. All these effects are seen qualitatively in the data as shown in Figs. 2 and 3.

However, similar effects can be expected even if the doping is taking place in the conventional way: homogeneously into the planar bonds. For example, if the CuO2 planes are becoming more positively charged with doping the negatively charged apical oxygen would be predicted to come closer to the planes due to simple coulomb attraction. Also, the U33 displacement factor of the apical oxygen atom is expected to increase with doping due to the random doping of larger Sr2+ ions. Inhomogeneous doping in the form of stripes or checkerboards komiy;prl05 ; hanag;nat04  would also result in enlarged thermal factors for in-plane and apical motions of $`O1`$ and $`O2`$. However, inhomogeneous doping would not affect average bond-length obtained from Rietveld refinement. It is therefore important to be more quantitative to distinguish these different possibilities.

The PTG calculations perry;prb02  were carried out at special rational doping fractions of 1/8, 1/4 and 1/2 and suggest the appearance of a single distorted CuO6 octahedron associated with each doped strontium. The $`r_{CuO2}`$ bond closest to the strontium is shortened by $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`r_{CuO2}`$ $`=0.24`$ Å and that farthest from the Sr on the same octahedron by $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`r_{CuO2}`$ $`=0.10`$ Å, the Sr-O2 distance increases, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`r_{La/SrO2}`$ $`=+0.11`$ Å and the in-plane $`r_{CuO1}`$ distances do not change. In the average structure these defects are not seen explicitly; however, the distortions will be apparent as a properly weighted change in the average bond-length and an increase in the respective displacement parameters. If we assume that these defects appear as each strontium is doped and are not a special feature of the rational doping fractions studied, we get the following relations for the strontium doping, $`x`$, dependence of the average bond lengths:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }r_{CuO2}(x)=0.17x,\mathrm{\Delta }r_{La/SrO2}(x)=0.11x,$$
(1)
where $`x`$ is the doping level. These are shown as the dashed lines in Fig. 2. The evolution of $`r_{La/SrO2}`$ is in quantitative agreement. The case of $`r_{CuO2}`$ is more complicated. $`r_{CuO2}`$ decreases much more slowly than the prediction initially on doping. However, beyond a doping level of $`0.17`$ the slope of $`r_{CuO2}`$ vs $`x`$ increases. In this higher doping region the slope of the PTG line agrees rather well with the data. There is no specific prediction from the PTG calculations for the $`x`$-dependence of $`r_{CuO1}`$, although it is expected to be small since the length of $`r_{CuO1}`$ in the defect octahedra does not change and no doping dependent change in lattice parameters has been assumed in their calculations. This reflects the fact that, in the PTG picture the doped charge is almost exclusively located in the apical $`d_{z^2r^2}`$ orbitals of the copper. Therefore, we have drawn a flat dashed line as the PTG prediction for this parameter in Fig. 2(b). As is apparent, the data for $`r_{CuO1}`$ slope downward with a slope of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`r_{CuO1}`$ $`0.105`$. This is comparable to, though slightly less than, the observed $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`r_{CuO2}`$ $`0.18`$ of the apical bond. This observation will be important later.

The presence of the anti-Jahn-Teller distorted doped CuO6 octahedra in the PTG calculations will manifest itself in an increased atomic displacement factor for O2, especially along $`z`$. The most sensitive parameter will be the width of the Cu-O pair distribution along the $`z`$-axis. This cannot be measured directly from the PDF because of peak overlap but can be found from the sum of U33(Cu)+U33(02). The mean-square width is plotted in Fig. 3 and does increase with increasing doping at constant temperature, a sign that static disorder associated with this bond is increasing with doping. To investigate more quantitatively whether this increase is consistent with the PTG predictions we calculated the PDF of a model structure containing the PTG defects. This simulated PDF was then fit using PDFFIT using the standard LTO model. This gives us a measure of how much $`U_{33}`$(O2) would increase in a standard LTO-structure refinement due to the presence of the PTG defects. The PDF was simulated for the $`x=0.125`$ composition using a 8x unit cell in the following way. The reference structure used was that of the undoped material with atomic positions taken from radae;prb94i  and displacement factors taken from our PDF result for the undoped sample. One La in the supercell was then replaced with Sr and the atoms on the CuO6 octahedron adjacent to the Sr were displaced by the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-values from the PTG prediction given above. The displacement parameters in the model retained their values in the $`x=0`$ compound. This neglects strain due to the defects, and any stripe or checkerboard doping inhomogeneities in the CuO2 planes, that would tend to increase displacement parameters further. The resulting PDFs were refined with the standard LTO unit cell. This resulted in an enlarged value of U33(Cu)+U33(02)$`=9.1\times 10^3`$ Å-2 plotted on Fig. 3, which overestimates the observed displacement factors.

Next, using PDF data of 1/8 doped La2-xSrxCuO4 at 10 K, explicit modeling of the anti-JT (A-JT) model was performed. The outcome is compared to the results of the modeling of the standard LTO model. The modeling employed the program PDFFIT proff;jac99 . A large supercell model was generated that incorporates explicit Sr doping, and allows for defining special doping-affected octahedral units, as described above in accord with Ref. perry;prb02 . Three distinct variants of the explicit A-JT models were attempted. These variants are distinguished as follows: (1) A model with symmetric A-JT distortion on affected octahedral units (apical Cu-O distances restricted to have the same length). (2) A model with asymmetric A-JT distortion (relevant apical distances are allowed to vary independently), and (3) A model with asymmetric A-JT distortion this time restricted to have displacements along LTO $`c`$-axis only. In all three variants atomic parameters of Sr were decoupled from those of La, except for the displacement factors that were restricted to be the same. In the variant (3) Sr $`y`$-coordinate was set to zero and Sr motion was restricted to be along $`c`$-axis only. The A-JT models were refined from the same set of initial values as that used for modeling the standard LTO structure. This equality of the starting values was only violated for O2 and Sr fractional $`y`$-coordinates in the variant (3), where these were set to zero and fixed.

The results are summarized in Table 1, where the weighted PDFFIT agreement factors (Rw) proff;jac99  are reported, as well as all relevant distances. Although for all the variants of the A-JT model the agreement factor is similar to the one for the LTO model, and for some variants even somewhat more favorable, it is not sufficient to unambiguously favor the distorted model over the standard LTO structure. Moreover, the refined distortions obtained from such explicit modeling yield relevant distance changes in the direction opposite to that originally proposed within the A-JT model of Perry et al. perry;prb02  (i.e., the Cu-O2 distance of the affected octahedral unit lengthens, while $`r_{SrO2}`$ shortens). However, inspection of the distances for the A-JT model results in the proper weighted average values when compared to corresponding average distances obtained by employment of the standard LTO model.

We now consider the expected structural changes that would occur based on electrostatic considerations in the conventional doping model. First, we note that the charge of the CuO2 plane is becoming less negative with doping which could result in the apical O2- moving closer to the plane. A very rough estimate of this behavior is possible neglecting the Jahn-Teller effect and assuming an ionic picture by using ionic radii of O$`{}_{}{}^{2}=1.35`$ Å, Cu$`{}_{}{}^{2+}=0.73`$ Å, Cu$`{}_{}{}^{3+}=0.54`$ Å, La$`{}_{}{}^{3+}=1.16`$ Å, and Sr$`{}_{}{}^{2+}=1.26`$ Å shann;ac69 . From this we get $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`r_{CuO2}`$ $`=0.19x`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`r_{La/SrO2}`$ $`=0.1x`$ which appear in Fig. 2 as dotted lines. Not surprisingly, these curves are similar to those predicted by PTG that is also a model involving a mixture of Cu2+ and Cu3+ sites. Uniform doping of charge into the Cu-O planes would not result in an increase in $`U_{33}`$(O2) on its own; however, the presence of misfitting Sr2+ dopant ions would. Any inhomogeneous charge distribution in the plane would increase $`U_{33}`$(O2)Ṫhe fact that the observed increase in $`U_{33}`$(O2) exists but is smaller than needed to explain the PTG defects may argue in favor of electrostatic interpretation. There is a suggestion from single crystal refinements compared with empirical potential calculations that increases in displacement factors with doping can be explained in this way without invoking PTG-type defects brade;prb01 . Our results would tend to support this.

A more refined empirical framework for studying the distribution of charge between bonds is the bond valence model brown;acb85 . In this theory there is a direct relationship established between bond-length, $`r`$, and the amount of charge in a bond (the bond-valence, $`s`$). The bond valence is defined as

$$s(r)=\mathrm{exp}\frac{(r_0r)}{B},$$
(2)
where $`B=0.37`$ Å is a universal constant and $`r_0`$ depends on the chemical identity of the ions in question. Using this approach it is possible to determine how much of the doped charge is going into the planar vs. the apical bonds from a measurement of their length changes. The theory is successful in unstrained compounds and has recently been applied to mixed valent crystals and crystals containing Jahn-Teller distortions brown;jssc89 . The nominal valence, $`V_i`$, of an ion is then determined by summing the bond-valences over all the bonds in which it participates, $`V_i=_js_{ij}`$. In the case of mixed valent crystals some ambiguity exists as to exactly what value to use for $`r_0`$. The qualitative results of our analysis, however, do not depend on what value of $`r_0`$ is used. The results are shown in Fig. 4.

Here we plot how the total doped charge (assumed to be given by $`x`$) distributes itself between the apical and planar orbitals respectively, as determined from the bond-valence sums. The dimensionless variables, $`\eta _p`$ (solid circles) and $`\eta _a`$ parameterize this partition where $`\eta _p+\eta _a=1`$.

Details of these calculations are as follows. First we determine the change in bond-valence of a particular bond due to doping, $`\delta s_i(x)=s_i(x)s_i(0)`$. We are interested in the partition of charge between the planar and apical orbitals, therefore we define an orbital-valence $`\delta S_m=_i\delta s_i`$ where the sum is over the planar bonds for the Cu$`d_{x^2y^2}`$–O$`p_{x,y}`$ orbital, $`\delta S_p`$, and over the apical bonds for the Cu$`d_{3z^2r^2}`$–O$`p_z`$ orbital, $`\delta S_a`$. This is then expressed in dimensionless parameters by dividing by the total excess valence of copper determined by the sum over all the orbital-valences, $`\eta _m(x)=\delta S_m(x)/V_{Cu}^{ex}`$. What is plotted in Figure 4 is $`x\eta _p`$ (solid circles) and $`x\eta _a`$ (solid squares), that are measures of the amount of charge doped into the planar and apical orbitals, respectively.

As is apparent in Fig. 2, both the apical and in-plane bonds shorten with doping indicating a reduction in charge and doped holes going into both planar and apical bonds. However, one of the key aspects of this theory is the non-linear form of the bond valence, $`s(r)`$. As a result, the same amount of charge doped into a long-bond shortens it much more than it would a short-bond, and vice versa. At $`x=0`$ $`r_{CuO1}`$$`<`$$`r_{CuO2}`$ reflecting the fact that initially the holes that make Cu in the $`2+`$-state reside predominantly in the planar orbitals making these the canonical half-filled anti-bonding bands, with the apical bonds being doubly occupied with electrons (i.e., full, no holes). The physics of this is the existence of the Jahn-Teller distortion; however, this shows that the phenomenological bond-valence model is making the correct prediction for the charge segregation initially. Subsequently, the experimental observation is that both the planar and apical bonds shorten at about the same rate but because the planar bonds are initially shorter, and the fact that there are four of them rather than two, mean that the experimental observations demand that the doped charge is going predominantly into the planar orbitals as is evident in Fig. 4.

The main result of this analysis is that the simple picture of localized Cu$`d_{3z^2r^2}`$–O$`p_z`$ doped holes associated with Sr sites described by the PTG calculations is not supported by the structural data. To a rather good approximation doped charge is going into the planar Cu$`d_{x^2y^2}`$–O$`p_{x,y}`$ orbitals. We do not address here whether $`Cu`$ sites contain different amounts of charge and this does not rule out localized doped defects or striped or checkerboard patterns of charge if they have sufficient planar character. Such defects have been stabilized in the unrestricted Becke-3-Lee-Yang-Parr density functional calculations takhi;unpub . However, the observation that $`r_{CuO2}`$ is getting shorter also requires that some doped charge is appearing in the apical Cu$`d_{3z^2r^2}`$–O$`p_z`$ orbital and a correction should be made to the canonical $`p=x`$ relationship to account for this, where $`p`$ is the doped charge in the planar orbitals. The partitioning parameter $`\eta _p`$ gives the correction, and $`p`$ is therefore given by $`p=x\eta _p`$ ($`\eta _p`$ shown in Fig. 4(a)). This augments spectroscopic measurements that show the partition of charge between copper and oxygen but struggle to differentiate partition between planar and apical bonds chen;prl91 ; chen;prl92 ; dalel;ijmpb04 .

In Figure 4(a) we show $`\eta _p`$ on an expanded scale. To obtain an analytic form for the $`p(x)`$ calibration curve we have fit curves to the data in Fig. 4(a). Linear fit proved adequate resulting in $`\eta _p=0.45(7)x+1.00(1)`$. This results in the calibration

$$p(x)=x(1.00(1)0.45(7)x).$$
(3)
The resulting fit to the data is shown in Fig. 4(a) and (b) and in the inset as a dashed line. Thus, at a strontium content of $`x=0.125`$ the doping in the planar orbitals is actually $`p=0.119`$, and conversely, the rational 1/8 filling occurs at $`x=0.131`$. Interestingly, the plateau in resistivity that was observed by Komiya et al.komiy;prl05  and correlated with special behavior at 1/8 doping occurred at $`x=0.13`$, which would correspond to $`p=0.125`$ when corrected using our calibration curve. Note that, at all dopings, more than 85% of doped charge goes into the planar orbitals, though it appears increasingly in the apical bonds at higher doping.

## IV  Conclusions

In summary, we have tested the hypothesis that doping in La2-xSrxCuO4 is occurring predominantly in Cu$`d_{3z^2r^2}`$–O$`p_z`$ orbitals perry;prb02 , rather than the canonical picture of doping into the planar Cu$`d_{x^2y^2}`$–O$`p_{x,y}`$ bands. Whilst the average structure evolves qualitatively as would be predicted according to Cu$`d_{3z^2r^2}`$–O$`p_z`$ doping picture, more quantitative analysis suggests that the canonical picture of one hole doped into the planar bands per strontium is actually rather close to the true situation. We present a correction factor quantifying the partition of doped charge between planar and apical bonds.

###### Acknowledgements.

We would like to acknowledge M. J. Gutmann, A. Bianconi, N. L. Saini and P. G. Radaelli for help and discussions. We acknowledge beamtime on the instrument GEM at ISIS. This work was supported by NSF through grant DMR-0304391. SJB acknowledges support and hospitality from Università di Roma, “La Sapienza”, where part of the work was carried out.