Mabuchi metrics and properness of the modified DING functional

In this paper, we study Mabuchi metrics on Fano manifolds. We prove that Mabuchi metrics exist if the modified Ding functional is proper modulo a reductive subgroup of its automorphism group. On the other hand, the inverse that Mabuchi metrics implies the properness is obtained by using Darvas-Rubinstein's properness principle. As an application, we establish a criterion for the existence of Mabuchi metrics on Fano group compactifications.