Conformally compact metrics and the Lovelock tensors

Abstract

We study conformally compact metrics satisfying the Lovelock equations, which generalize the Einstein equation. We show that these metrics admit polyhomogeneous expansions, thereby naturally realizing the Fefferman-Graham expansion, which is an important tool in conformal geometry and the AdS/CFT correspondence. In even dimensions, we identify a boundary obstruction to smoothness near the boundary that generalizes the ambient obstruction tensor in the Einstein setting. Under appropriate regularity and curvature conditions, we also construct a formal solution to the singular Yamabe-(2q) problem and provide an index obstruction for the conformally compact Lovelock filling problem of spin manifolds.

42 pages, 4 figures