New Perspectives in Complex General Relativity

TL;DR

This paper explores complex general relativity using complex-Riemannian manifolds, linking it to twistor theory and providing new geometric tools for understanding gravitational and massless fields.

Contribution

It introduces a multisymplectic framework and boundary conditions that connect complex general relativity with twistor geometry and field theory.

Findings

Link between Hamiltonian constraints and holomorphic structures.

Application of Penrose's potentials to Ricci-flat backgrounds.

New geometric tools for complex and real Riemannian gravity.

Abstract

In complex general relativity, Lorentzian space-time is replaced by a four-complex-dimensional complex-Riemannian manifold, with holomorphic connection and holomorphic curvature tensor. A multisymplectic analysis shows that the Hamiltonian constraint is replaced by a geometric structure linear in the holomorphic multimomenta, providing some boundary conditions are imposed on two-complex-dimensional surfaces. On studying such boundary conditions, a link with the Penrose twistor programme is found. Moreover, in the case of real Riemannian four-manifolds, the local theory of primary and secondary potentials for gravitino fields, recently proposed by Penrose, has been applied to Ricci-flat backgrounds with boundary. The geometric interpretation of the differential equations obeyed by such secondary potentials is related to the analysis of integrability conditions in the theory of massless fields, and might lead to a better understanding of twistor geometry. Thus, new tools are available in complex general relativity and in classical field theory in real Riemannian backgrounds.