On the Lichnerowicz conjecture for CR manifolds with mixed signature (Q1747411)

A vector field \(X\) on a Riemannian manifold \((M,g)\) is said to be \textit{conformal} if its flow acts by conformal diffeomorphisms. Such a vector field \(X\) is said to be \textit{essential} if no smooth metric \({\hat g} = e^{2\Upsilon}g\) conformal to \(g\) is preserved by the flow of \(X\). A conjecture attributed to Lichnerowicz states that the Euclidean spaces and the round spheres are, up to conformal diffeomorphisms, the unique Riemannian manifolds which admit essential vector fields. In this paper, the authors aim to study a similar question on a pseudo-Hermitian manifold \((M^{2n+1},J,\theta)\). A \textit{CR vector field} in such a manifold is a vector field \(X\) that preserves the contact distribution \(H:=\text{ker}\theta\) and the complex structure \(J\) on \(H\). A CR vector field is called \textit{essential} if no contact form \({\hat \theta} = e^{\Upsilon}\theta\) is preserved by its flow. The authors show that a closed nondegenerate pseudo-Hermitian manifold which admits an essential CR vector field is not necessarily CR flat by constructing a counterexample in the case of signature \((2,2)\). For the case of signature \((p,q)\) the authors prove the following: Theorem A. For any \(p,q \geq 2\), there exist infinitely many pairwise inequivalent non-flat CR structures of signature \((p,q)\) on \(S^1\times S^{2p+2q}\) that admit an essential CR vector field. Moreover, there is a non-flat CR structure of signature \((1,n-1)\) on \(\mathbb{R}\times\mathbb{C}^n\) that admits an essential CR vector field. For proving this theorem, the authors prove that if a CR manifold \((M^{2n+1},J)\), \(n \geq 2\), locally admits pseudo-Einstein forms, then any complex null geodesic in \(M\) carries a CR invariant projective parameterization.