Results concerning almost complex structures on the six-sphere (Q1749884)

It is known that the only spheres which admit almost complex structures are those in dimensions two and six. On the two-sphere, every almost complex structure is integrable, i.e., induced by a complex structure, and furthermore this is unique up to biholomorphisms. For the six-sphere \(\mathbb{S}^6\), while there are many almost complex structures, Hopf's original question from 1926, asking whether the six-sphere admits a complex structure, remains unsolved. There are results which forbid certain almost complex structures on \(\mathbb{S}^6\) from being integrable, previously obtained by Blanchard, LeBrun, Tang. Chern, in a result communicated by Bryant, has shown that no almost complex structure on \(\mathbb{S}^6\) that preserves a certain 2-form is integrable. In the present paper the author proves that for the standard metric on the six-dimensional sphere, with Levi-Civita connection \(\nabla\), there is no almost complex structure \(J\) such that \(\nabla X_J\) and \(\nabla _{JX}J\) commute for every \(X\), nor is there any integrable \(J\) such that \(\nabla _{JX}J= J \nabla _XJ\) for every \(X\). The latter statement generalizes a previously known result of LeBrun on the non-existence of integrable orthogonal almost complex structures on the six-sphere.