Nearly Kähler manifolds are the Riemannian 6-manifolds admitting real Killing spinors. Equivalently, the Riemannian cone over a nearly Kähler manifold has holonomy contained in G2. In this paper we study the deformation theory of nearly Kähler manifolds, showing that it is obstructed in general. More precisely, we show that the infinitesimal deformations of the homogeneous nearly Kähler structure on the flag manifold are all obstructed to second order.
The aim of the paper is to investigate the rigidity and the deformability of pseudoholomorphic curves in the nearly K{ä}hler sphere $\mathbb{S}^6,$ among minimal surfaces in spheres. Under various assumptions we describe the moduli space of all noncongruent minimal surfaces $f\colon M\to\mathbb{S}^n$ that are isometric to a pseudoholomorphic curve in $\mathbb{S}^6.$ Moreover, we prove a Schur type theorem (see \cite[p. 36]{Chnew}) for minimal surfaces in spheres.
We study hypersurfaces in a nearly $\mathrm{G}_2$ manifold. We define various quantities associated to such a hypersurface using the $\mathrm{G}_2$ structure of the ambient manifold and prove several relationships between them. In particular, we give a necessary and sufficient condition for a hypersurface with an almost complex structure induced from the $\mathrm{G}_2$ structure of the ambient manifold, to be nearly K$\ddot{\text{a}}$hler. Then using the nearly $\mathrm{G}_2$ structure on the round sphere $S^7$, we prove that for a compact minimal hypersurface $M^6$ of constant scalar curvatur…
We study nearly-Kahler 6-manifolds equipped with a cohomogeneity-two Lie group action for which the principal orbits are coisotropic. If the metric is complete, then we show that this last condition is automatically satisfied, and both the acting Lie group and the principal orbits are finite quotients of $S^3 \times S^1$. We partition the class of such nearly-Ka}hler structures into three types (called I, II, III) and prove a local existence and generality result for each type. Metrics of Types I and II are shown to be incomplete. We also derive a quasilinear elliptic PDE system on the 2-dimen…
We describe the second order obstruction to deformation for nearly $G_2$ structures on compact manifolds. Building on work of B.Alexandrov and U.Semmelmann this allows proving rigidity under deformation for the proper nearly $G_2$ structure on the Aloff-Wallach space $N(1,1)$.
Manifolds admitting Killing spinors are Einstein manifolds. Thus, a deformation of a Killing spinor entails a deformation of Einstein metrics. In this paper, we study infinitesimal deformations of Killing spinors on nearly parallel $\mathrm{G}_2$-manifolds. Since there is a one-to-one correspondence between nearly parallel $\mathrm{G}_2$-structures and Killing spinors on 7-dimensional spin manifolds, our results imply that infinitesimal deformations of nearly parallel $\mathrm{G}_2$-structures are examined in terms of Killing spinors. Applying the same technique, we identify that the space of …
We study the space of nearly Kähler structures on compact 6-dimensional manifolds. In particular, we prove that the space of infinitesimal deformations of a strictly nearly Kähler structure (with scalar curvature scal) modulo the group of diffeomorphisms, is isomorphic to the space of primitive co-closed (1,1)-eigenforms of the Laplace operator for the eigenvalue 2scal/5.
We study the deformation theory of $\mathrm{G}_2$-instantons on nearly $\mathrm{G}_2$ manifolds. There is a one-to-one correspondence between nearly parallel $\mathrm{G}_2$ structures and real Killing spinors, thus the deformation theory can be formulated in terms of spinors and Dirac operators. We prove that the space of infinitesimal deformations of an instanton is isomorphic to the kernel of an elliptic operator. Using this formulation we prove that abelian instantons are rigid. Then we apply our results to describe the deformation space of the canonical connection on the four normal homoge…
We study the infinitesimal deformations of a proper nearly parallel G_2-structure and prove that they are characterized by a certain first order differential equation. In particular we show that the space of infinitesimal deformations modulo the group of diffeomorphisms is isomorphic to a subspace of co-closed $Λ^3_{27}$-eigenforms of the Laplace operator for the eigenvalue 8 scal/21. We give a similar description for the space of infinitesimal Einstein deformations of a fixed nearly parallel G_2-structure. Moreover we show that there are no deformations on the squashed S^7 and on SO(5)/SO(3),…
It is well-known that every 6-dimensional strictly nearly Kähler manifold $(M,g,J)$ is Einstein with positive scalar curvature $scal>0$. Moreover, one can show that the space $E$ of co-closed primitive (1,1)-forms on $M$ is stable under the Laplace operator $Δ$. Let $E(a)$ denote the $a$-eigenspace of the restriction of $Δ$ to $E$. If $M$ is compact, we prove that the moduli space of infinitesimal Einstein deformations of the nearly Kähler metric $g$ is naturally isomorphic to the direct sum $E(scal/15)\oplus E(scal/5)\oplus E(2scal/5)$. It is known that the last summand is itself isomorphic w…
A nearly parallel $G_{2}$-manifold $Y$ is a Riemannian 7-manifold whose cone $C(Y) = \mathbb{R}_{>0} \times Y$ has the holonomy group contained in ${\rm Spin(7)}$. In other words, it is a spin 7-manifold with a real Killing spinor. We have a special class of calibrated submanifolds called Cayley submanifolds in $C(Y)$. An associative submanifold in $Y$ is a minimal 3-submanifold whose cone is Cayley. We study its deformations, namely, Cayley cone deformations, explicitly when it is homogeneous in the 7-sphere $S^{7}$.
Associative submanifolds $A$ in nearly parallel $G_2$-manifolds $Y$ are minimal 3-submanifolds in spin 7-manifolds with a real Killing spinor. The Riemannian cone over $Y$ has the holonomy group contained in ${\rm Spin(7)}$ and the Riemannian cone over $A$ is a Cayley submanifold. Infinitesimal deformations of associative submanifolds were considered by the author. This paper is a continuation of the work. We give a necessary and sufficient condition for an infinitesimal associative deformation to be integrable (unobstructed) to second order explicitly. As an application, we show that the infi…
We overview the properties of non-infinitesimal deformations of G2-structures on seven-manifolds, and in particular, focus on deformations that lie in the seven-dimensional representation of G2 and are thus defined by a vector. We then consider deformations from G2-structures with the torsion class having one-dimensional and seven-dimensional components (so-called conformally nearly parallel G2-manifolds) to G2-structures with just a one-dimensional torsion component (nearly parallel G2-manifolds). We find that deformations between such structures exist if and only if the metric is a particula…
The moduli space NK of infinitesimal deformations of a nearly Kähler structure on a compact 6-dimensional manifold is described by a certain eigenspace of the Laplace operator acting on co-closed primitive (1,1) forms. Using the Hermitian Laplace operator and some representation theory, we compute the space NK on all 6-dimensional homogeneous nearly Kähler manifolds. It turns out that the nearly Kähler structure is rigid except for the flag manifold F(1,2)=SU_3/T^2, which carries an 8-dimensional moduli space of infinitesimal nearly Kähler deformations, modeled on the Lie algebra su_3 of the i…
We study Rarita-Schwinger fields on 6-dimensional compact strict nearly Kähler manifolds. In order to investigate them, we clarify the relationship between some differential operators for the Hermitian connection and the Levi-Civita connection. As a result, we show that the space of the Rarita-Schwinger fields coincides with the space of the harmonic 3-forms. Applying the same technique to a deformation theory, we also find that the space of the infinitesimal deformations of Killing spinors coincides with the direct sum of a certain eigenspace of the Laplace operator and the space of the Killi…
We formulate the deformation theory for instantons on nearly Kähler six-manifolds using spinors and Dirac operators. Using this framework we identify the space of deformations of an irreducible instanton with semisimple structure group with the kernel of an elliptic operator, and prove that abelian instantons are rigid. As an application, we show that the canonical connection on three of the four homogeneous nearly Kähler six-manifolds G/H is a rigid instanton with structure group H. In contrast, these connections admit large spaces of deformations when regarded as instantons on the tangent bu…
Lagrangian submanifolds in strict nearly Kähler 6-manifolds are related to special Lagrangian submanifolds in Calabi-Yau 6-manifolds and coassociative cones in $G_2$-manifolds. We prove that the mean curvature of a Lagrangian submanifold $L$ in a nearly Kähler manifold $(M^{2n}, J, g)$ is symplectically dual to the Maslov 1-form on $L$. Using relative calibrations, we derive a formula for the second variation of the volume of a Lagrangian submanifold $L^3$ in a strict nearly Kähler manifold $(M^6, J, g)$. This formula implies, in particular, that any formal infinitesimal Lagrangian deformation…
We develop the deformation theory of instantons on asymptotically conical $G_2$-manifolds, where an asymptotic connection at infinity is fixed. A spinorial approach is adopted to relate the space of deformations to the kernel of a twisted Dirac operator on the $G_2$-manifold and to the eigenvalues of a twisted Dirac operator on the nearly Kähler link. This framework is then used to calculate the virtual dimension of the moduli spaces of $G_2$-instantons on which several known examples live. One such example considered is the $G_2$-instanton of Günaydin-Nicolai, which lives on $R^7$. As an appl…
Any $6$-dimensional strict nearly Kähler manifold is Einstein with positive scalar curvature. We compute the coindex of the metric with respect to the Einstein-Hilbert functional on each of the compact homogeneous examples. Moreover, we show that the infinitesimal Einstein deformations on $F_{1,2}=\mathrm{SU}(3)/T^2$ are not integrable into a curve of Einstein metrics.
We investigate the deformation theory of a class of generalized calibrations in Riemannian manifolds for which the tangent bundle has reduced structure group U(n), SU(n), G_2 and Spin(7). For this we use the property of the associated calibration form to be parallel with respect to a metric connection which may have non-vanishing torsion. In all these cases, we find that if there is a moduli space, then it is finite dimensional. We present various examples of generalized calibrations that include almost hermitian manifolds with structure group U(n) or SU(n), nearly parallel G_2 manifolds and g…
