Anti-self-dual gravity from asymmetric heavenly equation standpoint

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that the asymmetric heavenly equation, previously an exception, also governs anti-self-dual vacuum metrics, providing explicit solutions and geometric structures.

Contribution

It shows that the asymmetric heavenly equation can generate anti-self-dual vacuum metrics, expanding the class of equations known to describe such geometries.

Findings

Explicit multi-parameter polynomial solutions for the asymmetric heavenly equation.

Construction of null tetrads and metrics from solutions.

Explicit Riemann curvature forms for particular solutions.

Abstract

In paper [3] on the classification of second-order PDEs with four independent variables that possess partner symmetries, asymmetric heavenly equation appears as one of canonical equations admitting partner symmetries. It was shown that all these canonical equations, together with general heavenly equation of Dubrov and Ferapontov [4], provide potentials for anti-self-dual Ricci-flat vacuum metrics [1,2,5], the asymmetric heavenly equation presenting the only exception so far. Our aim here is to show that the latter equation also governs anti-self-dual vacuum heavenly metric. We present the corresponding basis of null vector fields, null tetrad of coframe 1-forms and a general form of the metric. We obtain a multi-parameter polynomial solution of our equation which yields a family of metrics with the above properties. Riemann curvature 2-forms are also explicitly presented for the cubic solution to modified heavenly equation [4], which is a particular case of the asymmetric heavenly equation.