On the CR-curvature of Levi degenerate tube hypersurfaces (Q2396634)

A \(C^\infty\)-smooth tube hypersurface in \({\mathbb{C}}^n\) is a manifold \(M\) of the form \(M = S + iV\), where \(S \subset {\mathbb{R}}^n\) is a smooth hypersurface called the base, and \(V \subset {\mathbb{R}}^n\) is an open set. Two smooth tube hypersurfaces are CR equivalent if there is a smooth CR map with a CR inverse between them. Two tubes are affinely equivalent if there exists an affine transformation \(z \mapsto Az + b\), \(A \in \mathrm{GL}_n({\mathbb{R}})\), \(b \in {\mathbb{C}}^n\), taking one to the other. A basic question is when does global or local CR equivalence imply affine equivalence. The question has been studied mostly for Levi-nondegenerate tubes. In this work, the author is interested in the Levi-degenerate case. The results extend the work from a previous paper. Let \(\mathfrak{C}_{2,1}\) be the set of smooth connected 5-dimensional CR hypersurfaces that are 2-nondegenerate and uniformly Levi-degenerate of rank 1. The author and \textit{D. Zaitsev} [J. Geom. Anal. 23, No. 3, 1571--1605 (2013; Zbl 1281.32030)] proved that a manifold \(M \in \mathfrak{C}_{2,1}\) is CR-flat (the CR-curvature vanishes) if and only if \(M\) is locally CR equivalent to an open subset of \(M_0 := \{ z \in {\mathbb{C}}^3 : (\text{Re} z_1)^2 + (\text{Re} z_2)^2 - (\text{Re} z_3)^2 = 0, \text{Re} z_3 > 0 \}\). Later Isaev proved that every CR-flat tube in \(\mathfrak{C}_{2,1}\) is affinely equivalent to an open subset of \(M_0\), in contrast to the Levi-nondegenerate case. In fact that result holds if we only require certain two coefficients, called \(\Theta_{21}^2\) and \(\Theta_{10}^2\) in the expansion of the CR-curvature are zero. In this work, the author proves that only one such condition, what the author calls \(\boldsymbol{\Theta}_{10}^2 = 0\), is needed. That is, the vanishing of a certain quantity derived from a one coefficient in the expansion of the CR curvature leads to the vanishing of the entire CR curvature. The result leads to an interesting system of partial differential equations. Finally the author asks if the vanishing of \(\Theta_{21}^2\) also forces flatness, and obtains a negative answer by finding a class of not CR-flat tubes where \(\Theta_{21}^2\) vanishes.