On the geometry of tangent hyperquadric bundles: CR and pseudoharmonic vector fields (Q2505239)

Assume that \((M,g)\) is a semi-Riemannian manifold and that \(TM\) represents its tangent bundle. The authors describe a semi-Riemannian metric \(G\) (canonical metric) and a compatible almost complex structure \(J\) on \(TM\) which arise naturally from \(g\). They show that \((TM,J,G)\) is a indefinite almost Kähler manifold and characterize the holomorphic functions and the integrability of \(J\). Then they introduce a bundle of hyperquadrics \(U_\varepsilon (M,g)\) (the semi-Riemannian analog to the tangent sphere bundle over a Riemannian manifold) and show that \(U_\varepsilon (M,g)\) is semi-Riemannian hypersurface of \((TM,J,G)\) with index \(\varepsilon =\pm 1\). They compute the Weingarten equations and endow \(U_\varepsilon (M,g)\) with the natural CR structure induced by \(J\). They study this CR structure obtaining, in particular, the integrability conditions. Next, some applications are given. First, the authors show that if the Reeb vector \(\xi\) of an almost contact Riemannian manifold is a CR-map, then the natural almost CR structure on \(M\) is strictly pseudoconvex and \(\xi\) is a pseudo-Hermitian map. Moreover, if in addition \(\xi\) is geodesic, then it is a harmonic field. As another application they study pseudoharmonic vector fields on a compact strictly pseudoconvex CR manifold \(M\). A unit tangent vector field lying in the Levi distribution of \(M\) is called pseudoharmonic if its horizontal lift to the canonical circle bundle is harmonic, that is, if it is a critical point of the Dirichlet energy functional associated to the Fefferman metric. They show that the harmonic vector field equations project on a nonlinear system of subelliptic PDEs on \(M\) which are, in turn, the Euler-Lagrange equations of a variational principle on \(M\).