Some rigidity results on critical metrics for quadratic functionals

Abstract

In this paper we prove rigidity results on critical metrics for quadratic curvature functionals, involving the Ricci and the scalar curvature, on the space of Riemannian metrics with unit volume. It is well-known that Einstein metrics are always critical points. The purpose of this article is to show that, under some curvature conditions, a partial converse is true. In particular, for a class of quadratic curvature functionals, we prove that every critical metric with non-negative sectional curvature must be Einstein.