Extremal metrics for the Q′-curvature in three dimensions

Abstract

We construct contact forms with constant Q′-curvature on compact three-dimensional CR manifolds that admit a pseudo-Einstein contact form and satisfy some natural positivity conditions. These contact forms are obtained by minimizing the CR analogue of the II-functional from conformal geometry. Two crucial steps are to show that the P′-operator can be regarded as an elliptic pseudodifferential operator and to compute the leading-order terms of the asymptotic expansion of the Green's function for P′.