2.10. Uniqueness and moduli [041I]
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2.10. Uniqueness and moduli
In this Section we show that under symmetry, there is only one complete Calabi-Yau metric on within a suitably restrictive asymptotic class prescribed by the metric deviation estimate in Theorem 2.26. The strategy is similar to the one used by Conlon and Hein [2].
Lemma 2.30.
Let and . If a function satisfies with bound , then .
Proof.
Since is a Ricci-flat metric, the Bochner formula implies
so is a non-negative subharmonic function. The decay condition implies it converges to zero at infinity, so maximum principle gives . ∎
Proposition 2.31.
Let and . If a -invariant potential satisfies with bound , then .
Proof.
The strategy is to improve the decay rate of iteratively, until it becomes sufficiently fast. We rewrite the equation as a Poisson equation
Notice that lives in , so its square lives in . As long as stays in the good range of weight exponents, Corollary 2.24 and the above vanishing lemma imply that the solution to this Poisson equation must satisfy . This is an improved decay estimate because and . Since each iteration improves the decay rate by a definite amount, within a finite number of steps we can assume and . Then implies that after adjusting by a constant. Then we can use the standard integration by part argument for the complex Monge-Ampère equation to see
Hence is a constant, and the metric is unique. ∎
It follows from the uniqueness result that the natural parameter space of our Taub-NUT type metrics is the space of positive definite rank 2 matrices , which involves 3 parameters. The discrete group acts on the parameter space by permuting the edges , or equivalently interchanging the 3 positive numbers This permutation does not change the holomorphic isometry type of the Taub-NUT type metrics, so the moduli space of our construction is the -quotient of the parameter space. The scaling transformations act on the parameter space by
The size of is inversely related to the area of the asymptotic in the generic region near infinity, and the inverse matrix up to scale describes the shape of the asymptotic . If we restrict attention to , then the Taub-NUT type metrics on are uniformly equivalent.
We mention two interesting problems:
Question.
What kind of degenerations would happen if the scale invariant uniform ellipticity bound (2.11) fails?
Question.
Can we prove uniqueness under a weaker hypothesis? For instance, if a complete Calabi-Yau metric on is uniformly equivalent to , then does it need to be a member of our family of Taub-NUT type metrics? If we are only given the topology of , then is it possible to characterise our Taub-NUT type metrics in terms of its tangent cone at infinity and some extra curvature decay conditions?
The author feels this uniqueness question would be the beginning of a classification program of higher dimensional gravitational instantons (cf. Section 2.11.2 for more discussions).