Positive mass theorem for the Yamabe problem on spin manifolds

Bernd Ammann, Emmanuel Humbert

Published 2003-04-03, updated 2008-02-25Version 3

Let $(M,g)$ be a compact connected spin manifold of dimension $n\geq 3$ whose Yamabe invariant is positive. We assume that $(M,g)$ is locally conformally flat or that $n \in \{3,4,5\}$. According to a positive mass theorem of Witten, the constant term in the asymptotic development of the Green's function of the conformal Laplacian is positive if $(M,g)$ is not conformally equivalent to the sphere. In the present article, we will give a proof for this fact which is considerably shorter than previous proofs. Our proof is a modification of Witten's argument, but no analysis on asymtotically flat spaces is needed.