On differential geometry of non-degenerate CR manifolds

TL;DR

This paper explores the differential geometry of non-degenerate CR manifolds by generalizing pseudo-Hermitian structures, introducing a canonical connection, and defining pseudo-Kähler manifolds, leading to new insights and proofs in CR geometry.

Contribution

It introduces a generalized pseudo-Hermitian framework with a canonical connection and pseudo-Kähler structures, extending classical results in CR and Riemannian geometry.

Findings

Defined a canonical connection generalizing Tanaka-Webster connection

Introduced pseudo-Kähler manifolds as an analogue of Kähler manifolds

Provided a new proof for the classification of Sasakian space forms

Abstract

In this paper, we consider a non-degenerate CR manifold (M,H(M),J) with a given pseudo-Hermitian 1-form {\theta}, and endow the CR distribution H(M) with any Hermitian metric h instead of the Levi form L_{{\theta}}. This induces a natural Riemannian metric g_{h,{\theta}} on M compatible with the structure. The synthetic object (M,{\theta},J,h) will be called a pseudo-Hermitian manifold, which generalizes the usual notion of pseudo-Hermitian manifold (M,{\theta},J,L_{{\theta}}) in the literature. Our purpose is to investigate the differential-geometric aspect of pseudo-Hermitian manifolds. By imitating Hermitian geometry, we find a canonical connection on (M,{\theta},J,h), which generalizes the Tanaka-Webster connection on (M,{\theta},J,L_{{\theta}}). We define the pseudo-K\"ahler 2-form by g_{h,{\theta}} and J; and introduce the notion of a pseudo-K\"ahler manifold, which is an analogue of a K\"ahler manifold. It turns out that (M,{\theta},J,L_{{\theta}}) is pseudo-K\"ahlerian. Using the structure equations of the canonical connection, we derive some curvature and torsion properties of a pseudo-Hermitian manifold, in particular of a pseudo-K\"ahler manifold. Then some known results in Riemannian geometry are generalized to the pseudo-Hermitian case. These results include some Cartan type results. As an application, we give a new proof for the classification of Sasakian space forms.