Homogeneous structures of 3-dimensional Sasakian space forms

Connections (general theory) (53C05) General geometric structures on manifolds (almost complex, almost product structures, etc.) (53C15) Special Riemannian manifolds (Einstein, Sasakian, etc.) (53C25) Differential geometry of homogeneous manifolds (53C30)

Review text

Sasaki space forms are a very special class of contact manifolds. In dimension 3, the following are the only simply connected Sasaki space forms:\N\begin{itemize}\N\item The unit three-sphere with its standard contact structure.\N\item The one-parameter family of Berger three-spheres, equipped with a contact structure obtained by deforming the above-mentioned standard contact structure on \(S^3\).\N\item The three-dimensional Heisenberg group with its standard contact structure.\N\item The universal covering of \(\mathrm{SL}(2,\mathbb{R})\), adorned with a member of a one-parameter family of contact structures explicitly described in the article under consideration.\N\end{itemize}\NWe note that, in each case, the manifold can be viewed as a Lie group and the Sasaki structure is left-invariant. At the same time, each 3-dimensional simply connected Sasaki space form \(M\) can be represented as \(M=(G\ltimes \mathrm{SO}(2))/\mathrm{SO}(2)\).\N\NIn this article, both representations are used to study homogeneous Riemannian structures on the above spaces. More precisely, the authors provide a classification of all homogeneous Riemannian structures on a Sasaki space form \(M(c)\), where \(c\in \mathbb{R}\) represents the so-called holomorphic sectional curvature. The case \(c=1\) corresponds to the standard three-sphere, which was already understood; hence the article focuses on \(c\neq 1\). In the case \(c\geq -3\), it is shown that there is a one-parameter family of homogeneous Riemannian structures. For \(c<-3\), there is also a one-parameter family, which is however supplemented by a single additional structure corresponding to the representation of the universal covering of \(\mathrm{SL}(2,\mathbb{R})\) as a solvable Lie group. In each case, the structures are explicitly described. The proof starts by using Ambrose and Singer's description [\textit{W. Ambrose} and \textit{I. M. Singer}, Duke Math. J. 25, 647--669 (1958; Zbl 0134.17802)] of local homogeneity in terms of a \((1,2)\)-tensor field \(S\) such that \(\nabla + S\) has nice properties (\(\nabla\) being the Levi-Civita connection). Using a local (co)frame, finding tensor fields with the required properties amounts to solving a system of differential equations, which the authors manage to do explicitly to obtain the classification.\N\NThe material is presented in a clear and detailed manner. In particular, the authors go to some lengths to carefully introduce all the requisite background material, making the article readable for non-experts.

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