On holonomy of Weyl connections in Lorentzian signature (Q2034558)

Holonomy groups of pseudo-Riemannian manifolds have been actively studied in the last decades. A classical result is the classification of connected holonomy groups of Riemannian manifolds. Recently connected holonomy groups of Lorentzian manifolds were classified. In other signatures only partial results are known. Given a conformal class of pseudo-Riemannian metrics, a Weyl connection is a torsion-free linear connection preserving the conformal class; such a connection is not unique. Belgun, Moroianu and Grabbe classified connected holonomy groups of Weyl connections in the Riemannian signature. The author of the work under review obtains the classification for the Lorentzian signature. Recall that a connected Lie group is uniquely defined by its Lie algebra. The Lie algebra of the holonomy group is called the holonomy algebra. It is enough to assume that the Weyl connection is not closed, i.e., locally it is not the Levi-Civita connection of a metric from the conformal class. First, the author classifies the so-called Berger algebras, which are candidates to the holonomy algebra. Then for each of the obtained Berger algebras the author constructs a Weyl connection realizing it as the holonomy algebra; this is the most important and interesting part of the work. Three cases are distinguished: the holonomy algebra is irreducible; the holonomy algebra preserves a proper non-degenerate subspace of the tangent space; or the holonomy algebra does not preserve any proper non-degenerate subspace of the tangent space, but it preserves a degenerate subspace. In the first case the holonomy algebra is the Lorentzian conformal algebra. Unlike the holonomy algebras of the Levi-Civita connection, the holonomy algebra in the second case is not a direct sum, but there are three possibilities. In the third case, the holonomy algebra preserves an isotropic line, and these algebras are divided into 6 types.