Holonomy groups of pseudo-quaternionic-Kählerian manifolds of non-zero scalar curvature (Q620454)

A pseudo-quaternionic-Kählerian manifold \(M\) of signature \((4r,4s)\) has the Riemannian holonomy group \(G= \text{Hol}(M)\) contained in \(Sp(1)\cdot Sp(r,s)\). The scalar curvature of \(M\) is non-zero if and only if the holonomy algebra \(\mathfrak{g}=\mathfrak{hol}(M)\) contains the factor \(\mathfrak{sp}(1)\). Moreover, in this case the standard representation of \(G\) acts indecomposable on \(\mathbb{H}^{r,s}=\mathbb{R}^{4r,4s}\). These are known facts of the theory. In the pseudo-Riemannian case, the question arises whether the holonomy group \(G\) can be a non-irreducible subgroup of \(Sp(1)\cdot Sp(r,s)\). The current paper shows that this is only possible in split signature, i.e., when \(r=s\). Moreover, in this case, there are exactly two possibilities for the connected component \(G^0\) of \(G\). In the first case, \(G^0=H_0\), where the group \(H_0\) preserves a totally null \(\mathbb{H}\)-subspace \(W\) of \(\mathbb{H}^{r,s}\) with \(\dim_{\mathbb{H}}W=r=s\) and \(H_0\) is the holonomy group of a certain symmetric space. In fact, it is shown in the paper that \(G^0=H_0\) implies that \(M\) is locally symmetric. Secondly, \(G^0\) can be equal to the group \(Sp(1)\cdot Sp(r,r)_W\), which is the maximal stabiliser of \(W\). However, in practice it is unclear whether this group can be realised as a holonomy group of some manifold \(M\). The proof of the results follows purely algebraic considerations discussing the possible Berger subalgebras of \(\mathfrak{sp}(1)\oplus\mathfrak{sp}(r,s)\) and the second prolongation of \(\mathfrak{h}_0\).