Embeddability for 3-dimensional Cauchy-Riemann manifolds and CR Yamabe invariants (Q1928331)

It is well known that the question of embeddability of a hypersurface type CR structure has special character in dimension \(3\). In this article, the authors derive sufficient conditions for global embeddability of a \(3\)-dimensional CR manifold into some \(\mathbb C^n\) in terms of CR-covariant differential operators. The main role is played by the CR-Paneitz operator, which is of order \(4\). The main result is that non-negativity of the Paneitz operator together with positivity of the Webster-Tanaka curvature (or of the CR-Yamabe invariant) implies global embeddability. The main ingredient in the proof is a Bochner formula for the Kohn-Laplacian, in which the pseudo-Hermitian torsion does not occur. Via this formula, the above assumptions are sufficient to derive a lower bound on non-zero eigenvalues of the Kohn-Laplacian. This in turn implies closedness of its range and then, via a theorem of Kohn, global embeddability. Finally, the authors prove a result on stability of an embeddable \(3\)-dimensional CR structure.