Quaternionic contact Einstein manifolds (Q510374)

In this nice paper, the authors carry out a detailed study of the Ricci tensor associated with the Biquard connection of a quaternionic contact (qc) manifold. A manifold \(M^{4n+3}\) is said to be a qc manifold if it admits a distribution \(H\) of rank \(4n\) which is equipped with an \(\mathrm{Sp}(n)\mathrm{Sp}(1)\) structure locally defined by three 1-forms \(\eta_1\), \(\eta_2\), \(\eta_3\). Hence \(H=\bigcap_{1\leq i\leq 3}\ker\eta_i\) admits a horizontal metric \(g\) and a rank-3 bundle \(Q\) consisting of endomorphisms of \(H\) locally spanned by three orthogonal almost complex structures \(I_i\), \(1\leq i\leq 3\), that are \(g\)-compatible, fulfill the unit quaternionic relations and satisfy \(d\eta_i(X,Y)= 2g(I_iX, Y)\), for any \(X,Y\in H\), \(i= 1,2,3\). If \(n\geq 2\), then \(M^{4n+3}\) admits an unique connection \(\nabla\), called the Biquard connection, and a unique distribution \(V\) supplementary to \(H\) such that \(\nabla\) preserves the decomposition \(H\oplus V\) and the \(\mathrm{Sp}(n)\mathrm{Sp}(1)\) structure on \(H\). The vertical distribution \(V\) is locally spanned by the Reeb vector fields \(\xi_1\), \(\xi_2\), \(\xi_3\) such that \[ \eta_i(\xi_j)= \delta_{ij},\;(\xi_i+ d\eta_i)_{|H}= 0,\;(\xi_i+ d\eta_j)_{|H}= -(\xi_j+ d\eta_i)_{|H},\tag{1} \] denoting the interior multiplication. If \(\dim M= 7\) and one assumes the existence of Reeb vector fields satisfying (1), then the Biquard connection is well defined. The qc-Ricci tensor, the qc-scalar curvature are the Ricci tensor and the scalar curvature associated with \(\nabla\). Moreover, \(M^{4n+3}\) is said to be a qc-Einstein manifold if for any \(X,Y\in H\) one has \(\mathrm{Ric}(X,Y)= \frac{\mathrm{Scal}}{4n} g(X,Y)\). It is known that, if \(n\geq 2\), any qc-Einstein manifold has constant qc-scalar curvature. The authors extend this result to 7-dimensional manifolds and derive several interesting consequences. In particular, if \(M^7\) is a qc-Einstein manifold, the vertical distribuion is integrable and the fundamental 4-form is closed. In any dimensions, the authors characterize qc-Einstein manifolds by means of the flatness of a certain vertical connection and state the local structure equations. If \(M^7\) is qc-Einstein with non-zero qc-scalar curvature, then \(M^7\) is locally qc-homothetic to a 3-Sasakian manifold. If \(M^{4n+3}\) is a qc-Einstein manifold with zero qc-scalar curvature and the distribution \(V\) is regular, then \(M^{4n+3}\) fibers over a locally hyper-Kähler manifold.