Sasaki-Einstein 5-manifolds associated to toric 3-Sasaki manifolds (Q713053)

The author gives a correspondence between toric 3-Sasaki 7-manifolds and certain toric Sasaki-Einstein 5-manifolds. A 3-Sasaki 7-manifold \(S\) is called toric if it has a two-torus preserving the three Sasakian structures. \textit{C. P. Boyer} et al. constructed in [Invent. Math. 131, No. 2, 321--344 (1998; Zbl 0901.53033)] infinitely many smooth 3-Sasaki 7-manifolds for arbitrary second Betti number, and indeed, the present article is deeply linked to this previous work. The correspondence is roughly as follows. Given \(S\), one considers 1) its twistor space \(\mathcal{Z}\) with respect to one of the Reeb vector fields; it is a Kähler orbifold with an additional complex contact Kähler-Einstein structure. 2) the quotient \(\mathcal{M}\) of \(S\) by Sp(1); this is a \(4\)-dimensional quaternion-Kähler and Einstein orbifold, and the orbifold map \(S\rightarrow\mathcal{M}\) is a Riemannian submersion. 3) from \(\mathcal{M}\), a special symmetric toric Fano surface \(X\); this is done by a combinatorial construction. One crucial point of the paper is to relate the geometric properties of \(\mathcal{M}\) to those of \(X\). 4) a \(5\)-dimensional orbifold \(M\), which is the total space of the \(S^1\)-Seifert bundle associated to the embeddings of \(X\) into \(\mathcal{Z}\). More precisely, \(M\) is shown to be the zero set of a component of the 3-Sasaki moment map. This generalizes the classical example in which all these spaces are smooth and the constructed maps well-known, namely: \(S=S^7\), \(M=S^2\times S^3\), \(X=\mathbb{CP}^1\times \mathbb{CP}^1\), \(\mathcal{Z}=CP^3\), \(\mathcal{M}=S^4\). The author proves the existence of an orbifold Kähler-Einstein metric on the divisor \(X\) and concludes that \(M\) carries a Sasaki-Einstein structure. In fact, something more general is proven in the paper, namely, that any symmetric toric Fano orbifold admits a Kähler-Einstein metric. The author also determines the local space of anti-self-dual structures on a toric anti-self-dual Einstein orbifold. Finally, it is shown that \(M\) is also toric, thus it has to be diffeomorphic to \(\# k(S^2\times S^3)\), where \(k=2 b_2(S)+1\). Applying this construction to the manifolds given by Boyer et. al. [loc. cit.], the author concludes that for each odd \(k\geq 3\), there is a countably infinite number of toric Sasaki-Einstein structures on \(\# k(S^2\times S^3)\), and that the moduli space of Einstein metrics on \(\# k(S^2\times S^3)\) has infinitely many path components.