Cone structures and parabolic geometries (Q2163419)

A cone structure on a complex manifold \(M\) is a closed submanifold \(\mathcal{C} \subset \mathbb{P}T M\) of the projectivized tangent bundle which is submersive over \(M\). A conic connection on \(\mathcal{C}\) specifies a distinguished family of curves on \(M\) in the directions specified by \(\mathcal{C}\). There are two common sources of cone structures and conic connections, one in differential geometry and another in algebraic geometry. In differential geometry, there are cone structures induced by the geometric structures underlying holomorphic parabolic geometries, a classical example of which is the null cone bundle of a holomorphic conformal structure. In algebraic geometry, there are the cone structures consisting of varieties of minimal rational tangents (VMRT) given by minimal rational curves on uniruled projective manifolds. The local invariants of the cone structures in parabolic geometries are given by the curvature of the parabolic geometries, the nature of which depend on the type of the parabolic geometry, i.e., the type of the fibers of \(\mathcal{C} \to M\). For the VMRT-structures, more intrinsic invariants of the conic connections which do not depend on the type of the fiber play important roles. The authors study the relation between these two different aspects for the cone structures induced by parabolic geometries associated with a long simple root of a complex simple Lie algebra. As an application they obtain a local differential-geometric version of the global algebraic-geometric recognition theorem due to Mok and Hong-Hwang. In the present local version, the role of rational curves is completely replaced by appropriate torsion conditions on the conic connection.