Nearly-Kähler 6-manifolds of cohomogeneity two: principal locus (Q2108539)

This paper considers 6-dimensional nearly Kähler manifolds. At the time of writing, homogeneous such structures had been classified, and recently \textit{L. Foscolo} and \textit{M. Haskins} [Ann. Math. (2) 185, No. 1, 59--130 (2017; Zbl 1381.53086)] had constructed inhomogeneous nearly Kähler structures on \(S^6\) and \(S^3 \times S^3\) that are of cohomogeneity one under an action of \(\mathrm{SU}(2)\times\mathrm{SU}(2)\) (i.e., the principal orbits of the action are of codimension one). Relaxing the symmetry assumption, the author now investigates nearly-Kähler structures of cohomogeneity two. He shows that if the metric is complete, then the principal orbits of the action are coisotropic, and the (effectively) acting group is necessarily a finite quotient of \(S^3\times S^1\). He then turns to local considerations, and shows that on sufficiently small open sets in \({\mathbb{R}}^6\), nearly-Kähler metrics of cohomogeneity two exist in abundance. He distinguishes the structures by introducing a pointwise type distinction (type I, type II, type III) for the metrics; if one considers structures whose points are all of the same type, then these correspond to the acting group being a discrete quotient of the product of the Heisenberg group with \({\mathbb{R}}\), a solvable group, or a finite quotient of \(S^3\times S^1\). Combining this with the result mentioned above this means that only type III metrics can be complete. By a careful study of the integrability conditions to apply Cartan's Third Theorem, it turns out that in each of the three cases there is an infinite-dimensional family of structures, depending on two arbitrary functions of one variable in the sense of exterior differential systems.