On the classification of warped product Einstein metrics

Chenxu He, Peter Petersen, William Wylie

Published 2010-10-26, updated 2011-01-24Version 2

In this paper we take the perspective introduced by Case-Shu-Wei of studying warped product Einstein metrics through the equation for the Ricci curvature of the base space. They call this equation on the base the $m$-Quasi Einstein equation, but we will also call it the $(\lambda,n+m)$-Einstein equation. In this paper we extend the work of Case-Shu-Wei and some earlier work of Kim-Kim to allow the base to have non-empty boundary. This is a natural case to consider since a manifold without boundary often occurs as a warped product over a manifold with boundary, and in this case we get some interesting new canonical examples. We also derive some new formulas involving curvatures which are analogous to those for the gradient Ricci solitons. As an application, we characterize warped product Einstein metrics when the base is locally conformally flat.