The second Yamabe invariant

Let $(M,g)$ be a compact Riemannian manifold of dimension $n \geq 3$. We define the second Yamabe invariant as the infimum of the second eigenvalue of the Yamabe operator over the metrics conformal to $g$ and of volume 1. We study when it is attained. As an application, we find nodal solutions of the Yamabe equation

The supremum of conformally covariant eigenvalues in a conformal class

Let (M,g) be a compact Riemannian manifold of dimension >2. We show that there is a metric h conformal to g and of volume 1 such that the first positive eigenvalue the conformal Laplacian with repect to h is arbitrarily large. A similar statement is proven for the first positive eigenvalue of the Dirac operator on a spin manifold of dimension >1

Relations between threshold constants for Yamabe type bordism invariants

In the work of Ammann, Dahl and Humbert it has turned out that the Yamabe invariant on closed manifolds is a bordism invariant below a certain threshold constant. A similar result holds for a spinorial analogon. These threshold constants are characterized through Yamabe-type equations on products of spheres with rescaled hyperbolic spaces. We give variational characterizations of these threshold constants, and our investigations lead to an explicit positive lower bound for the spinorial threshold constants

Harmonic spinors and local deformations of the metric

Let (M,g) be a compact Riemannian spin manifold. The Atiyah-Singer index theorem yields a lower bound for the dimension of the kernel of the Dirac operator. We prove that this bound can be attained by changing the Riemannian metric g on an arbitrarily small open set.Comment: minor changes, to appear in Mathematical Research Letter

The conformal Yamabe constant of product manifolds

Let (V,g) and (W,h) be compact Riemannian manifolds of dimension at least 3. We derive a lower bound for the conformal Yamabe constant of the product manifold (V x W, g+h) in terms of the conformal Yamabe constants of (V,g) and (W,h).Comment: 12 pages, to appear in Proc. AMS; v3: small changes, very last preprint version, close to published versio

Low-dimensional surgery and the Yamabe invariant

Assume that M is a compact n-dimensional manifold and that N is obtained by surgery along a k-dimensional sphere, k\le n-3. The smooth Yamabe invariants \sigma(M) and \sigma(N) satisfy \sigma(N)\ge min (\sigma(M),\Lambda) for \Lambda>0. We derive explicit lower bounds for \Lambda in dimensions where previous methods failed, namely for (n,k)\in {(4,1),(5,1),(5,2),(6,3),(9,1),(10,1)}. With methods from surgery theory and bordism theory several gap phenomena for smooth Yamabe invariants can be deduced.Comment: Version 2 contains new results: the case (n,k)=(6,3) is now solved, Version 3: typos corrected, final version to appear in J. Math. Soc. Japa