Generalized almost contact structures and generalized Sasakian structures (Q2341645)

As odd-dimensional analogies of generalized complex and Kähler structures, \textit{M. Gualtieri} [Ann. Math. (2) 174, No. 1, 75--123 (2011; Zbl 1235.32020)] and \textit{N. Hitchin} [Q. J. Math. 54, No. 3, 281--308 (2003; Zbl 1076.32019)] generalized Sasakian structures and contact structures which were introduced in [\textit{I. Vaisman}, J. Geom. Symmetry Phys. 18, 63--86 (2010; Zbl 1207.53058); \textit{Y. S. Poon} and \textit{A. Wade}, J. Lond. Math. Soc., II. Ser. 83, No. 2, 333--352 (2011; Zbl 1226.53078)]. It was shown that a generalized Sasakian structure appears as a pair of almost contact structures. But no examples were known that do not arise as pairs of ordinary Sasakian structures. In this paper, generalized almost contact structures, which contain both generalized Sasakian structures and a generalized contact structures, are introduced in Definition 3.1. It is noted that generalized contact structures may not admit the B-field transformation, but generalized almost contact structures do (Remark 3.2, Lemma 2.3). There is a one-to-one correspondence between generalized almost contact structures on a manifold \(M\) and generalized almost complex structures on \(M \times \mathbb R_{>0}\) (Proposition 4.1). By this result, properties of generalized almost complex structures can be applied to the study of generalized almost contact structures, and a noncompact example of generalized Sasakian structure which does not arise as a pair of ordinary Sasakian structures is presented (Example 4.2). It is also shown that a generalized Sasakian structure on a compact three-dimensional manifold is equivalent to a pair of Sasakian structures (Theorem 4.6). These are the main results of this paper. For later convenience, the definition and properties of generalized almost complex structures are reviewed in Section 2.