Paneitz operator

In the mathematical field of differential geometry, the Paneitz operator is a fourth-order differential operator defined on a Riemannian manifold of dimension n. It is named after Stephen Paneitz, who discovered it in 1983, and whose preprint was later published posthumously in Paneitz 2008. In fact, the same operator was found earlier in the context of conformal supergravity by E. Fradkin and A. Tseytlin in 1982 (Phys Lett B 110 (1982) 117 and Nucl Phys B 1982 (1982) 157 ). It is given by the formula

where Δ is the Laplace–Beltrami operator, d is the exterior derivative, δ is its formal adjoint, V is the Schouten tensor, J is the trace of the Schouten tensor, and the dot denotes tensor contraction on either index. Here Q is the scalar invariant

which in four dimensions yields the Q-curvature.

The operator is especially important in conformal geometry, because in a suitable sense it depends only on the conformal structure. Another operator of this kind is the conformal Laplacian. But, whereas the conformal Laplacian is second-order, with leading symbol a multiple of the Laplace–Beltrami operator, the Paneitz operator is fourth-order, with leading symbol the square of the Laplace–Beltrami operator. The Paneitz operator is conformally invariant in the sense that it sends conformal densities of weight 2 − n/2 to conformal densities of weight −2 − n/2. Concretely, using the canonical trivialization of the density bundles in the presence of a metric, the Paneitz operator P can be represented in terms of a representative the Riemannian metric g as an ordinary operator on functions that transforms according under a conformal change g ↦ Ω²g according to the rule

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