Volume Entropy and Scalar Curvature near a Hyperbolic Metric

Let $(M^n,g_0)$ be a closed hyperbolic manifold, $n\geq3$. We compute the Hessian of volume entropy at $g_0$ under the constraint $Sc_g=-n(n-1)$ and express it as a quadratic form on transverse-traceless symmetric two-tensors. In dimension three, the Hessian is negative definite, and every sufficien