On the existence of local quaternionic contact geometries (Q2006018)

The notion of a quaternionic contact (qc) manifold was introduced by \textit{O. Biquard} [Métriques d'Einstein asymptotiquement symétriques. Paris: Société Mathématique de France (2000; Zbl 0967.53030)] as the quaternionic counterpart of the notion of a pseudo-Hermitian manifold. Most known examples of qc manifolds come from 3-Sasakian structures. In this paper, the authors reformulate the problem of local existence of qc structures as a problem of existence of integral manifolds of an appropriate exterior differential system. They prove the local existence of real analytic qc structures for any prescribed values of the respective curvature functions and their covariant derivatives at a given point on a manifold. They apply methods from the Cartan-Kähler theory and show the integrability of the exterior differential system.