A characterization of the $\hat{A}$-genus as a linear combination of Pontrjagin numbers

Abstract

We show in this short note that if a rational linear combination of Pontrjagin numbers vanishes on all simply-connected $4k$-dimensional closed connected and oriented spin manifolds admitting a Riemannian metric whose Ricci curvature is nonnegative and nonzero at any point, then this linear combination must be a multiple of the $\hat{A}$-genus, which improves on a result of Gromov and Lawson. Our proof combines an idea of Atiyah and Hirzebruch and the celebrated Calabi-Yau theorem.