Compactness of pseudo-Hermitian structures with integral bounds on curvature (Q816959)

The author studies the behavior of compact \(3\)-dimensional pseudo-Hermitian CR manifolds \((M,J,\theta)\) under the deformation of the contact form \(\theta\) into \(\theta_f=e^f\theta\), where \(f\) is a smooth function. He obtains a compactness criterion for contact forms in a fixed CR-structure, assuming a volume bound and \(L^p\) bounds on the Tanaka-Webster curvature, the pseudo-Hermitian torsion and its covariant derivative. An \(L^2\) bound on the derivative of the Tanaka-Webster curvature along the characteristic vector field is needed too. As an application, the author shows that the CR automorphism group is compact if \(M\) is not CR spherical or the CR Yamabe constant is negative.