On the geometry of Sasakian-Einstein 5-manifolds (Q1566355)

In this article the authors consider Sasaki-Einstein structures on compact 5-manifolds consisting of connected sums of \(k\) copies of \(S^2 \times S^3\) for some integer \(k \geq 1\). In a previous paper the first two authors considered regular Sasaki-Einstein structures on these spaces, and they showed, among other results, that there exists a complex \(2k-8\) parameter family of such structures for \(5 \leq k \leq 8\). In the present article the authors consider non-regular Sasaki-Einstein structures on the same 5-manifolds in the cases \(1 \leq k \leq 7\). For \(k = 1\) (i.e. \(S^2 \times S^3\)) they show that there are 14 inequivalent non-regular Sasaki-Einstein structures. For \(2 \leq k \leq 7\) they prove the existence of \(d\)-parameter complex families of such structures, where \(d\) is a positive integer (or integers) that depends on \(k\). The case \(k=8\) is treated in a separate article by the first two authors. The authors raise the question of whether there exist any Sasaki-Einstein structures on these spaces for \(k \geq 9\). The article uses methods based on recent work of \textit{J.-P. Demailly} and \textit{J. Kollár} [Ann. Sci. Éc. Norm. Supér., Iv. Sér. 34, 525--556 (2001; Zbl 0994.32021)] and \textit{J. M. Johnson} and \textit{J. Kollár} [Ann. Inst. Fourier 51, 69--79 (2001; Zbl 0974.14023)]. The authors of these two articles gave methods for constructing Kähler-Einstein metrics on log del Pezzo surfaces.