Canonical contact forms on spherical CR manifolds (Q1409589)

A CR manifold \((M,J)\) is called spherical if it is locally CR diffeomorphic to the standard sphere \(S^{2n+1}\) in \(\mathbb C^{n+1}\). A pseudo-convex pseudo-Hermitian structure is the datum of a real \(1\)-form \(\theta\) on \(M\) with \(\ker\theta\) equal to the analytic tangent space \(H\subset TM\) of \((M,J)\). To this \(\theta\), which is uniquely defined up to multiplication by a positive function, \textit{S. M. Webster} [J. Differ. Geom. 13, 25--41 (1978; Zbl 0379.53016)] associated a connection and a conformal sub-Laplacian. The author proves that for a connected \(M\) the form \(\theta\) can be chosen in such a way that the associated Webster scalar curvature is either positive, or negative, or zero, each case excluding the others. For positive Webster scalar curvature he also obtains a canonical form \(\theta\) only depending on the CR structure. Next he considers Kleinian subgroups \(\Gamma\) of the group PU\((n+1,1)\) of CR automorphisms of \(S^{2n+1}\). These are discrete subgroups such that the set \(\Lambda(\Gamma)\) of points \(\xi\in S^{2n+1}\) which are limits of sequence \(\{\gamma_k(\xi')\}\), with \(\{\gamma_k\}\subset\Gamma\) and \(\xi'\in\mathbb C^{n+1}\), \(| \xi'| <1\), is \(\neq S^{2n+1}\). The group \(\Gamma\) is said to be convex cocompact if the quotient of the convex hull of \(\Lambda(\Gamma)\) is compact. Setting \(\Omega(\Gamma)=S^{2n+1}\setminus \Lambda (\Gamma)\), he considers the spherical CR manifold \(\Omega(\Gamma)/\Gamma\) and defines on it a canonical \(\theta\), giving criteria for its Webster scalar curvature to be positive, negative, or zero, in terms of the critical exponent \[ \delta(\Gamma)=\inf \biggl\{s>0;\;\sum_{\gamma\in\Gamma} \exp(s\cdot d(x,\gamma(y))) <\infty\;\forall x,y\in\mathbb C^{n+1} \text{ with }| x| ,| y| <1 \biggr\} \] (where \(d\) is the complex hyperbolic distance on the unit ball in \(\mathbb C^{n+1}\)) of the Kleinian group.