Slice-polynomial functions and twistor geometry of ruled surfaces in \(\mathbb {CP}^3\) (Q2633098)

The authors study the twistor geometry of the four-sphere by so-called slice-polynomial functions and their cousins. The question of how to generalize the concept of holomorphicity from the complex numbers ${\mathbb C}$ to quaternions ${\mathbb H}$ in the most natural way is a long-standing and puzzling problem. A recent approach is based on the idea of slice-regular functions, i.e., differentiable functions from an open domain $\Omega\subset{\mathbb H}$ into ${\mathbb H}$ which are holomorphic along all subalgebras ${\mathbb C}_q\subset{\mathbb H}$, isomorphic to the complex numbers, spanned over ${\mathbb R}$ by the unit $1\in{\mathbb H}$ and any imaginary unit $q\in S^2\subset \mathrm{Im} \:{\mathbb H}$, i.e., satisfying $q^2=-1$. A subclass of slice-regular functions are the so-called \textit{slice-polynomial functions} $P:{\mathbb H}\setminus{\mathbb R}\rightarrow{\mathbb H}$ which are slice-regular such that their restrictions to any ${\mathbb C}_q$ with positive (complex) imaginary part, are polynomial. With any $P$ one can in a natural way associate its \textit{companion} $P^{\vee}$ (see Definition 2.17 in the article) and its \textit{extension} to the real axis $P_{\mathbb R}$ (see Section 2.1 in the article). Slice-regular, etc., functions are in an intimate relation with the \textit{twistor space} $Z={\mathbb C}P^3$ of the four-sphere $S^4={\mathbb H}P^1$ as well, by lifting them from ${\mathbb H}\subset {\mathbb H}P^1$ to ${\mathbb C}P^3$ by the aid of the twistor fibration $\pi :{\mathbb C} P^3\rightarrow {\mathbb H}P^1$. This allows making twistor theoretic re-interpretations. The article contains several results on the holomorphic geometry of $\mathbb{CP}^3$, the behaviour of $P$, $P^{\vee}$ and $P_{\mathbb R}$ along ${\mathbb H}$ and the existence of orthogonal complex structures on proper domains $\Omega\subset S^4$ (see Theorems 1.4, 1.5 and 1.6 and Corollary 1.7 in the article).