arXiv research

We develop the natural tractor calculi associated to conformal and CR structures as a fundamental tool for the study of Fefferman's construction of a canonical conformal class on the total space of a circle bundle over a non--degenerate CR manifold of hypersurface type. In particular we construct and treat the basic ob…

We prove that Fefferman spaces, associated to non--degenerate CR structures of hypersurface type, are characterised, up to local conformal isometry, by the existence of a parallel orthogonal complex structure on the standard tractor bundle. This condition can be equivalently expressed in terms of conformal holonomy. Ex…

Constructs perturbed Fefferman spaces on almost CR manifolds.

Generalizes Fefferman's structure to CR three-manifolds with additional data.

The aim of this paper is to describe the geometry of conformal structures in Lorentzian signature, which admit a lightlike conformal Killing vector field whose corresponding adjoint tractor acts as complex structure on the standard tractor bundle of conformal geometry. Key to the treatment of this problem is CR-geometr…

We study conformal Fefferman-Lorentz manifolds introduced by Fefferman. To do so, we introduce Fefferman-Lorentz structure on (2n+2)-dimensional manifolds. By using causal conformal vector fields preserving that structure, we shall establish two theorems on compact Fefferman-Lorentz manifolds: One is the coincidence of…

Study canonical curves and Kropina metrics in Lagrangian contact geometry.

Researchers create a family of conformally covariant operators.

We investigate the Fefferman spaces of conformal type which are induced, via parabolic geometry, by the quaternionic contact (qc) manifolds introduced by O.Biquard. Equivalent characterizations of these spaces are proved: as conformal manifolds with symplectic conformal holonomy of the appropriate signature; as pseudo-…

We study a Fefferman-type construction based on the inclusion of Lie groups ${\rm SL}(n+1)$ into ${\rm Spin}(n+1,n+1)$. The construction associates a split-signature $(n,n)$-conformal spin structure to a projective structure of dimension $n$. We prove the existence of a canonical pure twistor spinor and a light-like co…

We treat a non-normal Fefferman-type construction based on an inclusion $\SL(n+1)\embed\Spin(n+1,n+1)$. The construction associates a split signature $(n,n)$-conformal spin structure to a projective structure of dimension $n$. For $n\geq 3$ the induced conformal Cartan connection is shown to be normal if and only if it…

We describe and construct here pseudo-Hermitian structures $θ$ without torsion (i.e. with transversal symmetry) whose Webster-Ricci curvature tensor is a constant multiple of the exterior differential $dθ$. We call these structures pseudo-Hermitian Einstein and our result states that they all can be derived locally fro…

This paper analyses the parabolic geometries generated by a free 3-distribution in the tangent space of a manifold. It shows the existence of normal Fefferman constructions over CR and Lagrangian contact structures corresponding to holonomy reductions to SO(4,2) and SO(3,3), respectively. There is also a fascinating co…

The Fefferman metric connects CR manifolds to conformal geodesics in 3D.

The floating body approach to affine surface area is adapted to a holomorphic context providing an alternate approach to Fefferman's invariant hypersurface measure.

We introduce a CR-invariant class of Lorentzian metrics on a circle bundle over a 3-dimensional CR-structure, which we call quasi-Fefferman metrics. These metrics generalise the Fefferman metric but allow for more control of the Ricci curvature. Our main result is a criterion for embaddability of 3-dimensional CR-struc…

We prove that there exist global solutions of the twistor equation on the Fefferman spaces of strictly pseudoconvex spin manifolds of arbitrary dimension and we study their properties.

The paper embeds CR manifolds into twistor spaces and constructs neutral hyperkähler metrics.

The paper characterizes ambient metrics using conformal completion and null infinity properties.

In this note, we prove that the CR manifold which is induced from the canonical parabolic geometry of a quaternionic contact (qc) manifold via a Fefferman-type construction is equivalent to the CR twistor space of the qc manifold defined by O. Biquard.

Two constructions link path geometries to almost Grassmann structures.

Given an $n$-dimensional manifold $N$ with an affine connection $D$, we show that the associated Patterson-Walker metric $g$ on $T^*N$ admits a global and explicit Fefferman-Graham ambient metric. This provides a new and large class of conformal structures which are generically not conformally Einstein but for which th…

The conformal Fefferman-Graham ambient metric construction is one of the most fundamental constructions in conformal geometry. It embeds a manifold with a conformal structure into a pseudo-Riemannian manifold whose Ricci tensor vanishes up to a certain order along the original manifold. Despite the general existence re…

This paper analyses the parabolic geometries generated by a free $n$-distribution in the tangent space of a manifold. It shows that certain holonomy reductions of the associated normal Tractor connections, imply preferred connections with special properties, along with Riemannian or sub-Riemannian structures on the man…

The study proves curvature rigidity for convex polytopes.

We show that any contact form whose Fefferman metric admits a nonzero parallel vector field is pseudo-Einstein of constant pseudohermitian scalar curvature. As an application we compute the curvature groups of the total space of the canonical circle bundle over a CR manifold.

In this paper it is shown that a CR embedding from one strictly pseudoconvex hypersurface into another (of strictly larger dimension) sends chains on the source to chains on the target if and only if the embedding has a lift to a conformal isometry of the associated Fefferman bundles with vanishing pseudo-Riemannian se…

We define the notion of Witt structure on the tangent bundle of a pseudo-Riemannian manifold and we introduce a connection adapted to a such structure. The notions of geodesics and symmetric spaces are revisited in this setting and applications are given in the special cases of Robinson and Fefferman manifolds.

CR 3-sphere rigidity proven through curvature invariant.

An important tool in the study of conformal geometry, and the AdS/CFT correspondence in physics, is the Fefferman-Graham expansion of conformally compact Einstein metrics. We show that conformally compact metrics satisfying a generalization of the Einstein equation, Poincare-Lovelock metrics, also have Fefferman-Graham…

We present conformal structures in signature (3,2) for which the holonomy of the Fefferman-Graham ambient metric is equal to the non-compact exceptional Lie group G_{2(2)}. We write down the resulting 8-parameter family of G_{2(2)}-metrics in dimension seven explicitly in an appropriately chosen coordinate system on th…

We study subelliptic biharmonic maps, i.e. smooth maps from a compact strictly pseudoconvex CR manifold M into a Riemannian manifold N which are critical points of a certain bienergy functional. We show that a map is subelliptic biharmonic if and only if its vertical lift to the (total space of the) canonical circle bu…

We show that a set of conformally invariant equations derived from the Fefferman-Graham tensor can be used to construct global solutions of the vacuum Einstein equations, in all even dimensions. This gives, in particular, a new, simple proof of Friedrich's result on the future hyperboloidal stability of Minkowski space…

Extends Weyl geometry from conformal to Weyl manifolds using ambient metrics.

This paper constructs a family of conformally invariant differential operators acting on spinor densities with leading part a power of the Dirac operator. The construction applies for all powers in odd dimensions, and only for finitely many powers in even dimensions. These operators arise naturally as obstructions to f…

If the conformal holonomy group $Hol(\mathcal{T})$ of a simply connected space with conformal structure of signature $(2p-1,2q-1)$ is reduced to $\U(p,q)$ then the conformal holonomy is already contained in the special unitary group $\SU(p,q)$. We present two different proofs of this statement, one using conformal trac…

We present three large classes of examples of conformal structures for which the equations for the Fefferman-Graham ambient metric to be Ricci-flat are linear PDEs, which we solve explicitly. These explicit solutions enable us to discuss the holonomy of the corresponding ambient metrics. Our examples include conformal …

Modified construction for conformal structures with twistor spinors.

The Bergman-Szegő kernel is analyzed for weakly pseudoconvex CR manifolds of finite type.

Let $Δ_M$ be the Laplace operator on a compact $n$-dimensional Riemannian manifold without boundary. We study the zero sets of its eigenfunctions $u:Δu + λu =0$. In dimension $n=2$ we refine the Donnelly-Fefferman estimate by showing that $H^1(\{u=0 \})\le Cλ^{3/4-β}$, $β\in (0,1/4)$. The proof employs the Donnelli-Fef…

The study sharpens local Bernstein estimates for Laplace eigenfunctions on compact manifolds.

In this paper we relate the Fefferman-Graham ambient metric construction for conformal manifolds to the approach to conformal geometry via the canonical Cartan connection. We show that from any ambient metric that satisfies a weakening of the usual normalisation condition, one can construct the conformal standard tract…

For a surface in 3-sphere, by identifying the conformal round 3-sphere as the projectivized positive light cone in Minkowski 5-spacetime, we use the conformal Gauss map and the conformal transform to construct the associate homogeneous 4-surface in Minkowski 5-spacetime. We then derive the local fundamental theorem for…

Compact formulas for Yang-Mills conditions on conformal manifolds.

Given a generic 2-plane field on a 5-dimensional manifold we consider its (3,2)-signature conformal metric [g] as defined in math.DG/0406400. Every conformal class [g] obtained in this way has very special conformal holonomy: it must be contained in the split-real-form of the exceptional group G_2. In this note we show…

We show the vanishing of the log-term in the Fefferman expansion of the Bergman kernel of the disk bundle over a compact simply-connected homogeneous Kaehler--Einstein manifold of classical type.

We introduce in this paper normal twistor equations for differential forms and study their solutions, the so-called normal conformal Killing forms. The twistor equations arise naturally from the canonical normal Cartan connection of conformal geometry. Reductions of its holonomy are related to solutions of the normal t…

It is shown that the variational derivative of the integral of Branson's Q-curvature is the ambient obstruction tensor of Fefferman-Graham. A classification of irreducible conformally invariant tensors modulo quadratic and higher degree terms in curvature is established.