Automorphisms of symplectic and contact structures (Q328616)

This is a survey of the Lie algebra of infinitesimal automorphisms preserving an (almost) symplectic form \(\omega\) along with a so-called \textit{canonical} connection \(\nabla;\) these automorphisms are called \textit{absolute} by the authors. The canonical connection is an affine connection \(\nabla\) satisfying \(\nabla \omega=0,\) and whose torsion \(S^k_{ij}=\Gamma^k_{ij}-\Gamma^k_{ji}\) satisfies the condition that \(S_{ijk}=\omega_{kp}S^p_{ij}\) is skew-symmetric in all indices, and where the (almost) symplectic form can be written as \(\omega=\frac{1}{2}\omega_{ij}dx^i \wedge dx^j\) in local coordinates. (By definition the 2-form \(\omega\) is nondegenerate but not necessarily closed.) While it is well known that the infinitesimal symplectomorphisms form an infinite-dimensional Lie algebra (it is given by the one-forms on the space) the automorphisms considered here constitute a finite-dimensional space; if the real dimension of the symplectic manifold is \(2n\) then the upper bound is \(n(n+3)/2,\) as shown by the first author in [Uch. Zap. Kazan. Univ. Ser. Fiz.-Mat., 147, No. 1, 148--153 (2005; Zbl 1208.53043); ``Infinitesimal automorphisms of almost symplectic structures with canonical torsions'', in: Proc. Laptev Int. Geom. Semin., Penza. 80--84 (2007); ``Almost Hermitian structures on the tangent bundle of an almost symplectic manifold'', Proc. Int. Geom. Center, No. 1, 125--130 (2008)]. Finally, analogous results are also obtained in the case of (almost) contact structures \((M,\eta)\) equipped with an affine connection \(\nabla\) preserving the contact 1-form \(\eta\), i.e., \(\nabla \eta=0.\) For instance, it is shown that the dimension of the Lie group of strict contact-affine transformations (preserving the contact 1-form as well as the connection) is at most \(2n^2+ 3n+1\) for an almost contact manifold being of dimension \(2n+1\).