Nearly Kahler geometry and (2,3,5)-distributions via projective holonomy

DOI10.1512/IUMJ.2017.66.6089zbMATH Open1390.53013arXiv1403.1959OpenAlexW1552847314MaRDI QIDQ5367019FDOQ5367019

Rod Gover, Travis Willse, Roberto Panai

Publication date: 12 October 2017

Published in: Indiana University Mathematics Journal (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We show that any dimension $6$ nearly K"ahler (or nearly para-K"ahler) geometry arises as a projective manifold equipped with a $extrm{G}_2^{(*)}$ holonomy reduction. In the converse direction we show that if a projective manifold is equipped with a parallel $7$-dimensional cross product on its standard tractor bundle then the manifold is: a Riemannian nearly K"ahler manifold, if the cross product is definite, otherwise, if the cross product has the other algebraic type, the manifold is in general stratified with nearly K"ahler and nearly para-K"ahler parts separated by a hypersurface which canonically carries a Cartan $(2,3,5)$-distribution. This hypersurface is a projective infinity for the pseudo-Riemannian geometry elsewhere on the manifold, and we establish how the Cartan distribution can be understood explicitly, and also in terms of conformal geometry, as a limit of the ambient nearly (para

obreakdash-)K"ahler structures. Any real-analytic $(2,3,5)$-distribution is seen to arise as such a limit, because we can solve the geometric Dirichlet problem of building a collar structure equipped with the required holonomy-reduced projective structure. A model geometry for these structures is provided by the projectivization of the imaginary (split) octonions. Our approach is to use Cartan/tractor theory to provide a curved version of this geometry, this encodes a curved version of the algebra of imaginary (split) octonions as a flat structure over its projectivization. The perspective is used to establish detailed results concerning the projective compactification of nearly (para obreakdash-)K"ahler manifolds, including how the almost (para

obreakdash-)complex structure and metric smoothly degenerate along the singular hypersurface to give the distribution there.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1403.1959

zbMATH Keywords

holographyEinstein metricsconformal differential geometryprojective differential geometry\(G_2\) geometrynearly Kähler

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

General geometric structures on manifolds (almost complex, almost product structures, etc.) (53C15) Issues of holonomy in differential geometry (53C29) Global differential geometry of Hermitian and Kählerian manifolds (53C55) Einstein equations (35Q76) Projective connections (53B10) Stratified sets (58A35)

Cited In (11)

• DUALITY OF (2, 3, 5)-DISTRIBUTIONS AND LAGRANGIAN CONE STRUCTURES
• Metric projective geometry, BGG detour complexes and partially massless gauge theories
• Local equivalence of some maximally symmetric rolling distributions and \(SU(2)\) Pfaffian systems
• Cartan's incomplete classification and an explicit ambient metric of holonomy \(\mathrm G_2^\ast\)
• On the extendability of parallel sections of linear connections
• Metrics in projective differential geometry: the geometry of solutions to the metrizability equation
• Projective geometry of Sasaki–Einstein structures and their compactification
• Geometry of solutions to the c-projective metrizability equation
• The geometry of almost Einstein \((2,3,5)\) distributions
• Analytic torsion of generic rank two distributions in dimension five
• Homogeneous real \((2,3,5)\) distributions with isotropy

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