3-Manifolds with Yamabe invariant greater than that of ³

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We complete the classification (started by Bray and the second author) of all closed 3-manifolds with Yamabe invariant greater than that of ³, by showing that such manifolds are either S³ or finite connected sums # m(S² × S¹) # n(S² × S¹) for m + n ≥ 1, where S² × S¹ is the nonorientable S²-bundle over S¹. A key ingredient is Aubin's Lemma, which says that if the Yamabe constant is positive, then it is strictly less than the Yamabe constant of any of its non-trivial finite conformal coverings. This lemma, combined with inverse mean curvature flow and with analysis of the Green's functions for the conformal Laplacians on specific finite and normal infinite Riemannian coverings, will allow us to construct a family of nice test functions on the finite coverings and thus prove the desired result.