A construction of Engel structures (Q1763527)

An Engel structure is a smooth non-integrable plane field on a 4-manifold. Engel structures arise for example as generic germs of plane fields on \(\mathbb{R}^4\). In [\textit{M. Kazarian}, \textit{R. Montgomery} and \textit{B. Shapiro}, Pac. J. Math. 179, 355--370 (1997; Zbl 0895.58004)] one finds the following proposition, attributed to V. Gershkovich: Proposition: An orientable 4-manifold which admits an orientable Engel structure has trivial tangent bundle. The main result of the author's thesis announced in this note is the converse of the proposition above: Theorem: Every 4-manifold \(M\) with trivial tangent bundle admits an orientable Engel structure. The author discusses this theorem. Detailed proofs will be published elsewhere.