Explicit construction of self-dual 4-manifolds (Q1895996)

A self-dual metric or conformal structure on a 4-manifold \(M\) is a Riemannian metric \(g\) or conformal class \([g]\) for which the Weyl conformal curvature tensor \(W\) is self-dual; \(M\) is then called a self-dual 4-manifold. Compact self-dual 4-manifolds have been extensively studied, and it is known that very many compact 4-manifolds do admit families of self-dual metrics, but explicit examples of self-dual metrics that can be written down in coordinates are comparatively few. In this paper we provide a geometrical framework within which it is possible to construct self-dual structures by solving a linear rather than a nonlinear equation, and use it to construct some new explicit examples of compact self-dual 4-manifolds.