English

Mass and volume of four-dimensional Einstein metrics

Differential Geometry 2025-12-09 v1

Abstract

Let (M4,gˉ)(M^4,\bar{g}) be an Einstein manifold, where M4M^4 is a smooth, closed, oriented four-manifold M4M^4 and gˉ\bar{g} has positive Einstein constant. Given a point 0M40 \in M^4, let GG denote the (positive) Green's function GG of the conformal laplacian LgˉL_{\bar{g}}; then g=G2gˉg = G^2 \bar{g} is a complete, scalar-flat, asymptotically flat metric on M^=M{0}\widehat{M} = M \setminus \{ 0 \}. We first show that the ADM mass of gg can be expressed as an integral over M^\widehat{M}, then use this identity to prove a lower bound for the mass of gg in terms of the volume of gˉ\bar{g}. As corollaries, we prove a 'mass times volume' inequality, plus various mass gap theorems characterizing the round metric on S4S^4 and the Fubini-Study metric on CP2\mathbb{CP}^2.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2512.07257,
  title  = {Mass and volume of four-dimensional Einstein metrics},
  author = {Matthew Gursky and Andrea Malchiodi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.07257},
  year   = {2025}
}