Lower bounds on the Calabi functional

The main result of this paper shows that “test configurations” give new lower bounds on the $L^2$ norm of the scalar curvature on a Kahler manifold. This is closely analogous to the analysis of the Yang-Mills functional over Riemann surfaces by Atiyah and Bott. The proof uses asymptotic approximation by finite-dimensional problems: the essential ingredient being the Tian-Zelditch-Lu expansion of the “density of states” function.