Critical metrics for the quadratic curvature functional on complete four-dimensional manifolds

Abstract: We study critical metrics of the curvature functional $\A(g)=\int_M |R|^2\, \vol$, on complete four-dimensional Riemannian manifolds $(M,g)$ with finite energy, that is, $\A(g)<\infty$. Under the natural inequality condition on the curvature operator of the second kind associated with the trace-free Ricci tensor, we prove that $(M,g)$ is either Einstein or locally isometric to a Riemannian product of two-dimensional manifolds of constant Gaussian curvatures $c$ and $-c$ $(c\ne 0)$. This extends the compact classification of four-dimensional $\mathcal{A}$-critical metrics obtained in earlier work to the complete setting.