Multisymplectic 3-forms on 7-dimensional manifolds (Q1745789)

Let \(V\) be a \(7\)-dimensional real vector space. A \(3\)-form \(\omega \in \Lambda ^{3}V^{\ast }\) is called multisymplectic if the map \( V\to\Lambda ^{2}V^{\ast }\), \( v \to i_{v}\omega =\omega \left( v,-,-\right) \) is injective. A global \(3\)-form \(\Omega \) on a \(7\)-dimensional manifold \(N\) is called a multisymplectic \(3\)-form of algebraic type \(i\in \{1,\ldots ,8\}\) if for each \(x\in N\), \(\Omega _{x}\) is a multisymplectic \(3\)-form of type \(i\) . If \(O_{i}\) is the stabilizer of a fixed multisymplectic \(3\)-form \(\omega \in \Lambda ^{3}V^{\ast }\)\ of algebraic type \(i\), then \(N\) admits a multisymplectic \(3\)-form of algebraic type \(i\) if and only if it has an \( O_{i}\)-structure. It is well known that there are eight orbits (also called types) of multisymplectic \(3\)-forms on \(V\) under the canonical action of \(GL(V)\). The open types (types \(5\) and \(8\)) are the most interesting as they are equivalent to a \(G_{2}\) and \(\tilde{G}_{2}\)-structure. The existence of a \(G_{2}\)-structure (resp, \(\tilde{G}_{2}\)-structure) was solved in [\textit{A. Gray}, Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 141, 465--504 (1969; Zbl 0182.24603)] (resp. [\textit{H.-V. Le}, ``Manifolds admitting a \(\tilde G_2\)-structure'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:0704.0503}]). In the paper under review the author solves the problem of the existence of multisymplectic \(3\)-forms of the remaining types. For some of these types the problem is solved by assuming that the manifold \(N\) is orientable or simply-connected.