Parallel spinors for \(\mathrm{G}_2^*\) and isotropic structures (Q7016147)

The focus of this paper is the study of real, irreducible, parallel spinors on pseudo-Riemannian spin manifolds of signature (4,3). The authors explain that manifolds with signature (4,3) arise naturally in relation to the Lie group \(G_2^*\), which is less studied than its Riemannian counterpart. In turn, parallel spinors are relevant for a number of research fields in both theoretical physics (e.g., supergravity and superstring theory) and mathematics (e.g., spin geometry and manifolds with special holonomy). They are usually related to some notion of symmetry, and lead to restrictions on the curvature of the manifold.\N\NThe notion of parallel spinor considered in this article is in terms of general connections (cf. Definition 2.2 and Remark 2.3). The authors' framework is based on the use of objects called spinorial exterior forms, a theory developed in [\textit{V. Cortés} et al., Math. Z. 299, No. 3--4, 1351--1419 (2021; Zbl 1494.53064); \textit{C. S. Shahbazi}, ``Differential spinors and Kundt three-manifolds with skew-torsion'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:2405.03756}]. The use of signature (4,3) allows to consider spinors with vanishing pseudo-norm, which are called isotropic spinors. Section 1 of the paper is devoted to algebraic constructions, while Section 2 focuses on differential aspects, and the main results in each section are separated according to whether a spinor is isotropic or non-isotropic.\N\NThe main results of Section 1 are Theorem 1.7, which gives an intrinsic characterization of \(\mathrm{G}_2^*\)-structures in terms of non-isotropic spinors; and Theorem 1.12, which gives necessary and sufficient conditions for an exterior form to be the square of an isotropic spinor. The main results of Section 2 are Theorem 2.7, which characterizes a parallel, non-isotropic spinor in terms of an algebraically and differentially constrained 3-form; and Theorem 2.13, which characterizes a parallel isotropic spinor in terms of certain triples of 1-forms, i.e., those introduced in Definition 2.11. The latter result also leads to Corollary 2.14, where the authors characterize isotropic spinors which are parallel under a metric connection with torsion, and they use this in Section 2.4 to produce examples of metrics admitting these objects.