Connected sums of self-dual manifolds and equivariant relative smoothings (Q1568890)

The authors construct closed 4-manifolds with self-dual conformal structures which admit a 2-dimensional torus action, and have positive scalar curvature. They also study the local moduli spaces of such structures. The underlying manifolds are connected sums of complex projective planes. Using the twistor space construction the problem is translated and treated by methods of complex analytic geometry. The main technique is a method which was initiated by \textit{S. Donaldson} and \textit{R. Friedman} [Nonlinearity 2, 197-239 (1989; Zbl 0671.53029)] and which imitates the construction of connected sums: Two twistor spaces \(Z_1,Z_2\) are blown up along twistor lines \(L_1,L_2\) and glued along the exceptional loci \(Q_1,Q_2\) (both isomorphic to \(\mathbb{P}^1 \times L_i)\) via an isomorphism \(\varphi\) interchanging \(\mathbb{P}^1\) and \(L_1\) to \(L_2\) and \(\mathbb{P}^1\). The resulting singular space \(Z_1\cup_\varphi Z_2\) has to be smoothed by small deformations (preserving the real structure) which needs some extra conditions to ensure that this is possible. In the present paper some extra structures on the twistor spaces are considered, namely an irreducible real divisor \(S\in|K^{-1/2}|\) on one twistor space and a splitting real divisor \(D+\overline D\in|K^{-1/2}|\) on the other twistor space (these are special properties which can be satisfied for twistor spaces, and it is known that if they exist, then \(D,\overline D,S\) are smooth, transversal to general twistor lines with one resp. two points of intersection, and \(D\cap\overline D\) is a twistor line). In this situation the blowing up is along a twistor line \(L_1\) transversal to \(S\), and the twistor line \(L_2=D\cap\overline D\). The strict transforms \(\widetilde S,\widetilde D, \widetilde {\overline D}\) of these divisors and their union in \(Z_1\cup_\varphi Z_2\) give a (singular) divisor \({\mathcal S}\) in \(Z_1\cup_\varphi Z_2\). A large part of the paper is devoted to the study of smoothing the pair \((Z_1\cup_\varphi Z_2, {\mathcal S})\) by small deformations, using techniques of complex deformation theory as in \textit{Z. Ran} [J. Differ. Geom. 34, 37-47 (1991; Zbl 0755.32017)]. This is then the main technique for the construction of examples, based on earlier work of the authors [Math. Ann. 301, 717-749 (1995; Zbl 0820.53021)]. They also construct anti-self-dual Hermitian metrics on \((S^1\times S^3)\#n \overline{\mathbb{C} \mathbb{P}^2}\) for \(n\geq 3\) with \(S^1\)-symmetry.