Supersymmetric \(\sigma\)-models, twistors, and the Atiyah-Hitchin metric (Q679376)

Some connection between hyper-Kähler geometry and the extended supersymmetric nonlinear sigma-models has been studied by the second-named author in a series of papers. The present paper presents further results in this direction. The key notion in this paper is the Legendre transform and its twistor interpretation. The transform is to start with a particular function \(F\) that is constructed to satisfy a certain system of differential equations. Then one obtains another function \(K\) by performing a two dimensional Legendre transform with respect to a particular pair of variables in \(F\) and extremizing with respect to the remaining ones. Given a hyper-Kähler manifold \(M\) its twistor space can become a complex manifold \(T\) topologically equal to \(M\times S^2\). The hyper-Kähler structure of \(M\) leads to certain properties of \(T\), and vice versa given a twistor space with all those properties one can reconstruct \(M\) with a hyper-Kähler metric. So instead of working with \(M\) one can work with \(T\). By working with \(T\) it is shown how to interpret the previous Legendre transform in this setting. Once this is done it follows that the previously constructed \(K\) in the present framework becomes a Kähler potential for a hyper-Kähler metric of \(M\). The application includes re-consideration of \(A_k\) ALE-metric and the Atiyah-Hitchin metric from this point of view. In the final section the paper raises some open questions and conjectures, including a discussion of geodesic completeness of metrics.