Projective holonomy II: Cones and complete classifications (Q2481346)

Reporting on results of the author's thesis, this article is devoted to the classification of possible holonomy Lie algebras of the canonical Cartan connection associated to a projective structure (a class of torsion free connections sharing the same unparametrized geodesics) on a manifold \(M\). The key step is the construction (going back to the work of Tracy Thomas in the 1930's) of a Ricci-flat torsion free affine connection on the total space of a cone over \(M\), whose holonomy coincides with the projective holonomy. Hence, one may apply the classification of Ricci flat affine holonomies from the author's article [J. Geom. Phys. 57, No. 6, 1457--1475 (2007; Zbl 1149.53029)], which is based on the general classification results for affine holonomies, to obtain a list of possible projective holonomy Lie algebras. The main part of the article is devoted to showing case by case that, apart from a few low dimensional exceptions, all these possible holonomy Lie algebras can be realized on Ricci flat cones and hence do occur as projective holonomies. For Part I see the author, Ann. Global Anal. Geom. 33, No. 1, 47--69 (2008; Zbl 1147.53037).