Geometry of Hessian manifolds (Q1385078)

An affine manifold is Hessian if it possesses a Hessian metric, that is, a Riemannian metric which is locally the Hessian of a function. Hessian manifolds are the analogue of Kähler manifolds among affine manifolds and enjoy many strong properties. For example, the first theorem in the paper is that a simply connected affine manifold with a complete Hessian metric is affinely isomorphic to a convex domain. It follows that a compact Hessian manifold is a quotient of a convex domain \(\Omega\) by a discrete group \(\Gamma\) which acts properly on \(\Omega\). The authors discuss a curious duality for Hessian structures, go on to prove basic identities about this structure, including a Weitzenböck formula for the Laplacians for these metrics. Using these differential operators, a characterization of completeness is given, and a general decomposition theorem for Hessian manifolds is given. The paper concludes with a construction of an Albanese mapping from a compact Hessian manifold into a flat torus.