Cone structures and parabolic geometries

TL;DR

This paper explores the relationship between cone structures in differential and algebraic geometry, particularly those arising from parabolic geometries and minimal rational curves, and provides a local differential-geometric version of a global recognition theorem.

Contribution

It establishes connections between parabolic geometry-induced cone structures and VMRT structures, and introduces a local differential-geometric recognition theorem replacing rational curves with torsion conditions.

Findings

Relation between parabolic geometries and VMRT structures clarified.

A local differential-geometric recognition theorem is proved.

Invariants of cone structures are characterized by curvature and torsion conditions.

Abstract

A cone structure on a complex manifold $M$ is a closed submanifold $\mathcal C \subset \mathbb P TM$ of the projectivized tangent bundle which is submersive over $M$. A conic connection on $\mathcal C$ specifies a distinguished family of curves on $M$ in the directions specified by $\mathcal C$. There are two common sources of cone structures and conic connections, one in differential geometry and another in algebraic geometry. In differential geometry, we have cone structures induced by the geometric structures underlying holomorphic parabolic geometries, a classical example of which is the null cone bundle of a holomorphic conformal structure. In algebraic geometry, we have the cone structures consisting of varieties of minimal rational tangents (VMRT) given by minimal rational curves on uniruled projective manifolds. The local invariants of the cone structures in parabolic geometries are given by the curvature of the parabolic geometries, the nature of which depend on the type of the parabolic geometry, i.e., the type of the fibers of $\mathcal C \to M$. For the VMRT-structures, more intrinsic invariants of the conic connections which do not depend on the type of the fiber play important roles. We study the relation between these two different aspects for the cone structures induced by parabolic geometries associated with a long simple root of a complex simple Lie algebra. As an application, we obtain a local differential-geometric version of the global algebraic-geometric recognition theorem due to Mok and Hong--Hwang. In our local version, the role of rational curves is completely replaced by appropriate torsion conditions on the conic connection.