In this article we study the stability problem for the Einstein metrics on Sasaki Einstein and on complete nearly parallel ${\rm G}_2$ manifolds. In the Sasaki case we show linear instability if the second Betti number is positive. Similarly we prove that nearly parallel $\rm G_2$ manifolds with positive third Betti number are linearly unstable. Moreover, we prove linear instability for the Berger space ${\rm SO}(5)/{\rm SO}(3)_{irr} $ which is a $7$-dimensional homology sphere with a proper nearly parallel ${\rm G}_2$ structure.
We prove that every nearly Sasakian manifold of dimension greater than five is Sasakian. This provides a new criterion for an almost contact metric manifold to be Sasakian. Moreover, we classify nearly cosymplectic manifolds of dimension greater than five.
We carry on a systematic study of nearly Sasakian manifolds. We prove that any nearly Sasakian manifold admits two types of integrable distributions with totally geodesic leaves which are, respectively, Sasakian or $5$-dimensional nearly Sasakian manifolds. As a consequence, any nearly Sasakian manifold is a contact manifold. Focusing on the $5$-dimensional case, we prove that there exists a one-to-one correspondence between nearly Sasakian structures and a special class of nearly hypo $SU(2)$-structures. By deforming such a $SU(2)$-structure one obtains in fact a Sasaki-Einstein structure. Fu…
We provide a new, self-contained and more conceptual proof of the result that an almost contact metric manifold of dimension greater than 5 is Sasakian if and only if it is nearly Sasakian.
In this paper, we introduce and study a new class of CR-lightlike submanifold of an indefinite nearly Sasakian manifold, called Quasi Generalized Cauchy-Riemann (QGCR) lightlike submanifold. We give some characterization theorems for the existence of QGCR-lightlike submanifolds and finally derive necessary and sufficient conditions for some distributions to be integrable.
The concept of quasi generalized CR-lightlike was first introduced by the authors in [18]. In this paper, we focus on ascreen and co-screen quasi generalized CR-lightlike submanifolds of indefinite nearly $μ$-Sasakian manifold. We prove an existence theorem for minimal ascreen quasi generalized CR-lightlike submanifolds admitting a metric connection. Classification theorems on nearly parallel and auto-parallel distributions on a co-screen quasi generalized CR-lightlike submanifold are also given. Several examples are also constructed, where necessary, to illustrate the main ideas.
In this paper, we study warped product submanifolds of nearly trans-Sasakian manifolds. The non-existence of the warped product semi-slant submanifolds of the type $N_θ\times{_{f}N_T}$ is shown, whereas some characterization and new geometric obstructions are obtained for the warped products of the type $N_T\times{_{f}N_θ}$. We establish two general inequalities for the squared norm of the second fundamental form. The first inequality generalizes derived inequalities for some contact metric manifolds [16, 18, 19, 24], while by a new technique, the second inequality is constructed to express th…
A 3-Sasakian structure on a 7-manifold may be used to define two distinct Einstein metrics: the 3-Sasakian metric and the squashed Einstein metric. Both metrics are induced by nearly parallel $G_2$-structures which may also be expressed in terms of the 3-Sasakian structure. Just as Einstein metrics are critical points for the Ricci flow up to rescaling, nearly parallel $G_2$-structures provide natural critical points of the (rescaled) geometric flows of $G_2$-structures known as the Laplacian flow and Laplacian coflow. We study each of these flows in the 3-Sasakian setting and see that their b…
In this expository article we discuss the relations between Sasakian geometry, reduced holonomy and supersymmetry. It is well known that the Riemannian manifolds other than the round spheres that admit real Killing spinors are precisely Sasaki-Einstein manifolds, 7-manifolds with a nearly parallel G2 structure, and nearly Kaehler 6-manifolds. We then discuss the relations between the latter two and Sasaki-Einstein geometry.
We consider hypersurfaces in Einstein-Sasaki 5-manifolds which are tangent to the characteristic vector field. We introduce evolution equations that can be used to reconstruct the 5-dimensional metric from such a hypersurface, analogous to the (nearly) hypo and half-flat evolution equations in higher dimensions. We use these equations to classify Einstein-Sasaki 5-manifolds of cohomogeneity one.
We prove the instability of some families of Riemannian manifolds with non-trivial real Killing spinors. These include the invariant Einstein metrics on the Aloff-Wallach spaces $N_{k, l}={\rm SU}(3)/i_{k, l}(S^{1})$ (which are all nearly ${\rm G}_2$ except $N_{1,0}$), and Sasaki Einstein circle bundles over certain irreducible Hermitian symmetric spaces. We also prove the instability of most of the simply connected non-symmetric compact homogeneous Einstein spaces of dimensions $5, 6, $ and $7$, including the strict nearly Kähler ones (except ${\rm G}_2/{\rm SU}(3)$).
In the first part of this note we study compact Riemannian manifolds (M,g) whose Riemannian product with R is conformally Einstein. We then consider compact 6--dimensional almost Hermitian manifolds of type W_1+W_4 in the Gray--Hervella classification admitting a parallel vector field and show that (under some regularity assumption) they are obtained as mapping tori of isometries of compact Sasaki-Einstein 5-dimensional manifolds. In particular, we obtain examples of inhomogeneous locally (non-globally) conformal nearly Kähler compact manifolds.
We prove that any totally geodesic hypersurface $N^5$ of a 6-dimensional nearly Kähler manifold $M^6$ is a Sasaki-Einstein manifold, and so it has a hypo structure in the sense of \cite{ConS}. We show that any Sasaki-Einstein 5-manifold defines a nearly Kähler structure on the sin-cone $N^5\times\mathbb R$, and a compact nearly Kähler structure with conical singularities on $N^5\times [0,π]$ when $N^5$ is compact thus providing a link between Calabi-Yau structure on the cone $N^5\times [0,π]$ and the nearly Kähler structure on the sin-cone $N^5\times [0,π]$. We define the notion of {\it nearly…
We introduce a new general class of metric f-manifolds which we call (nearly) trans-S-manifolds and includes S- manifolds, C-manifolds, s-th Sasakian manifolds and generalized Kenmotsu manifold studied previously. We prove their main properties and we present many examples which justify their study.
A geometry with parallel skew-symmetric torsion is a Riemannian manifold carrying a metric connection with parallel skew-symmetric torsion. Besides the trivial case of the Levi-Civita connection, geometries with non-vanishing parallel skew-symmetric torsion arise naturally in several geometric contexts, e.g. on naturally reductive homogeneous spaces, nearly Kähler or nearly parallel $\mathrm{G}_2$-manifolds, Sasakian and $3$-Sasakian manifolds, or twistor spaces over quaternion-Kähler manifolds with positive scalar curvature. In this paper we study the local structure of Riemannian manifolds c…
We investigate instantons on manifolds with Killing spinors and their cones. Examples of manifolds with Killing spinors include nearly Kaehler 6-manifolds, nearly parallel G_2-manifolds in dimension 7, Sasaki-Einstein manifolds, and 3-Sasakian manifolds. We construct a connection on the tangent bundle over these manifolds which solves the instanton equation, and also show that the instanton equation implies the Yang-Mills equation, despite the presence of torsion. We then construct instantons on the cones over these manifolds, and lift them to solutions of heterotic supergravity. Amongst our s…
For gauge groups $U(1)$ and $SO(3)$ we classify invariant $G_2$-instantons for homogeneous coclosed $G_2$-structures on Aloff-Wallach spaces $X_{k,l}$. As a consequence, we give examples where $G_2$-instantons can be used to distinguish between different strictly nearly parallel $G_2$-structures on the same Aloff-Wallach space. In addition to this, we find that while certain $G_2$-instantons exist for the strictly nearly parallel $G_2$-structure on $X_{1,1}$, no such $G_2$-instantons exist for the tri-Sasakian one. As a further consequence of the classification, we produce examples of some oth…
We prove dynamical stability and instability theorems for compact Einstein metrics under the Ricci flow. We give a nearly complete charactarization of dynamical stability and instability in terms of the conformal Yamabe invariant and the Laplace spectrum. In particular, we prove dynamical stability of some classes of Einstein manifolds for which it was previously not known. Additionally, we show that the complex projective space with the Fubini-Study metric is surprisingly dynamically unstable.
