On Green functions of second-order elliptic operators on Riemannian manifolds: The critical case

We prove for a critical operator P in M, the existence of a Green function which is dominated above by the ground state of P away from the singularity. Moreover, in a certain class of Green functions, such a Green function is unique, up to an addition of a product of the ground states of P and P⋆. Under some further assumptions, we describe the behavior at infinity of such a Green function. This result extends and sharpens the celebrated result of P. Li and L.-F. Tam concerning the existence of a symmetric Green function for the Laplace-Beltrami operator on a smooth and complete Riemannian manifold M.