Toric anti-self-dual 4-manifolds via complex geometry (Q2509008)

The paper is devoted to the description of the local geometry of anti-self-dual \(4\)-manifolds admitting a conformal Killing \(2\)-torus action. The authors show that the classification problem is related to rather simple holomorphic objects: a holomorphic involution \(\tau\) of a neighbourhood of the origin in \(\mathbb{C}\) with \(\tau'=-1\) and a holomorphic \(\mathbb{C}^2\)-valued function \(\phi\), defined on the same neighbourhood, satisfying the following two conditions: (i) \(\phi\circ\tau=-\phi\); (ii) \(\phi'(0)\) and \(\bar{\phi'(0)}\) are \(\mathbb{C}\)-linearly independent. A pair \((\tau, \phi)\) as above determines a twistor space, hence an anti-self-dual \(4\)-manifold. Conversely, it is shown that generically, all anti-self-dual \(4\)-manifolds arise this way. In the particular case, treated also by \textit{D. D. Joyce} [Duke Math. J. 77, No. 3, 519--552 (1995; Zbl 0855.57028)], of surface-orthogonal solutions, the authors give explicit formulae in coordinates (formula (2) in Section 4.2) for the metrics in the conformal class on the space of lines and this allows them to reprove Joyce's result. In general, the explicit formulation of the metric relies on uniformising a certain Riemann surface constructed with the aid of the holomorphic data. The problem could not be solved in full generality, but some particular cases were treated, producing new families of anti-self-dual \(4\)-manifolds, for example one of conformally Kähler solutions with non-Lagrangian orbits.