Rigidity and gap theorems for Liouville's equation

Abstract

In this paper, we study the properties of the first global term in the polyhomogeneous expansions for Liouville's equation. We obtain rigidity and gap results for the boundary integral of the global coefficient. We prove that such a boundary integral is always nonpositive, and is zero if and only if the underlying domain is a disc. More generally, we prove some gap theorems relating such a boundary integral to the number of components of the boundary. The conformal structure plays an essential role. We also give some positive mass theorem type results through the integral of the global coefficient.