Einstein Metrics on Spheres

Charles P. Boyer, Krzysztof Galicki, János Kollár

Published 2003-09-24, updated 2004-07-12Version 2

We prove the existence of an abundance of new Einstein metrics on odd dimensional spheres including exotic spheres, many of them depending on continuous parameters. The number of families as well as the number of parameter grows double exponentially with the dimension. Our method of proof uses Brieskorn-Pham singularities to realize spheres (and exotic spheres) as circle orbi-bundles over complex algebraic orbifolds, and lift a Kaehler-Einstein metric from the orbifold to a Sasakian-Einstein metric on the sphere.