Sign-changing blow-up for scalar curvature type equations

Abstract

Given $(M,g)$ a compact Riemannian manifold of dimension $n\geq 3$, we are interested in the existence of blowing-up sign-changing families $(\ue)_{\eps>0}\in C^{2,\theta}(M)$, $\theta\in (0,1)$, of solutions to $$\Delta_g \ue+h\ue=|\ue|^{\frac{4}{n-2}-\eps}\ue\hbox{ in }M\,,$$ where $\Delta_g:=-\hbox{div}_g(\nabla)$ and $h\in C^{0,\theta}(M)$ is a potential. We prove that such families exist in two main cases: in small dimension $n\in \{3,4,5,6\}$ for any potential $h$ or in dimension $3\leq n\leq 9$ when $h\equiv\frac{n-2}{4(n-1)}\Scal_g$. These examples yield a complete panorama of the compactness/noncompactness of critical elliptic equations of scalar curvature type on compact manifolds. The changing of the sign is necessary due to the compactness results of Druet and Khuri--Marques--Schoen.