The Willmore energy for Frenet curves in quaternionic projective space is the generalization of the Willmore functional for immersions into the 4-sphere. Critical points of the Willmore energy are called Willmore curves in quaternionic projective space.
Using a Baecklund transformation on Willmore curves, we generalize Bryant's result on Willmore spheres in 3--space: a Willmore sphere in quaternionic projective space has integer Willmore energy, and is given by complex holomorphic data.
We view conformal surfaces in the 4--sphere as quaternionic holomorphic curves in quaternionic projective space. By constructing enveloping and osculating curves, we obtain new holomorphic curves in quaternionic projective space and thus new conformal surfaces. Applying these constructions to Willmore surfaces, we show that the osculating and enveloping curves of Willmore spheres remain Willmore.
This is the first comprehensive introduction to the authors' recent attempts toward a better understanding of the global concepts behind spinor representations of surfaces in 3-space. The important new aspect is a quaternionic-valued function theory, whose "meromorphic functions" are conformal maps into quaternions, which extends the classical complex function theory on Riemann surfaces. The first results along these lines were presented at the ICM 98 in Berlin. An important new invariant of the quaternionic holomorphic theory is the Willmore energy. For quaternionic holomorphic curves in the …
The paper develops the fundamentals of quaternionic holomorphic curve theory. The holomorphic functions in this theory are conformal maps from a Riemann surface into the 4-sphere, i.e., the quaternionic projective line. Basic results such as the Riemann-Roch Theorem for quaternionic holomorphic vector bundles, the Kodaira embedding and the Pluecker relations for linear systems are proven. Interpretations of these results in terms of the differential geometry of surfaces in 3- and 4-space are hinted at throughout the paper. Applications to estimates of the Willmore functional on constant mean c…
We propose the study of a conformally invariant functional for surfaces of complex projective plane which is closely related to the classical Willmore functional. We show that minimal surfaces of complex projective plane are critical for this functional and construct some minima for it via the twistors spaces of complex projective plane. Also, we find lower bounds for this functional and for its restriction to the class of Lagrangian surfaces and characterize the complex lines and the Lagrangian totally geodesic surfaces and the Whitney spheres as the only attaining those bounds.
We prove that a constrained Willmore immersion of a 2-torus into the conformal 4-sphere is either of "finite type", that is, has a spectral curve of finite genus, or is of "holomorphic type" which means that it is super conformal or Euclidean minimal with planar ends. This implies that all constrained Willmore tori in the 4-sphere can be constructed rather explicitly by methods of complex algebraic geometry. The proof uses quaternionic holomorphic geometry in combination with integrable systems methods similar to those of Hitchin's approach to the study of harmonic tori in the 3-sphere.
We consider the class of all conformal mappings from a compact Riemann surface into the threedimensional or fourdimensional Euclidean space. A sequence in this class with bounded Willmore functional is shown to have a sequence of conformal transformations of the target space, such that a subsequence of the transformed sequence converges. This implies that there exists a smooth conformal mapping, which minimizes the Willmore functional in this class. For this purpose we extend the quaternionic function theory of Pedit and Pinkall to square integrable Hopf fields. In particular, we proof the Plu…
We extend T. Y. Thomas's approach to the projective structures, over the complex analytic category, by involving the $ρ$-connections. This way, a better control of the projective flatness is obtained and, consequently, we have, for example, the following application: if the twistor space of a quaternionic manifold $P$ is endowed with a complex projective structure then $P$ can be locally identified, through quaternionic diffeomorphisms, with the quaternionic projective space.
We prove that a compact quaternionic-Kähler manifold of dimension $4n\geq 8$ admitting a conformal-Killing 2-form which is not Killing, is isomorphic to the quaternionic projective space, with its standard quaternionic-Kähler structure.
We characterize Willmore tori in the 4-sphere with nontrivial normal bundle as Twistor projections of elliptic curves in complex projective space or as inverted minimal tori (with planar ends) in Euclidean 4-space.
In this paper we develop the theory of Willmore sequences for Willmore surfaces in the 4-sphere. We show that under appropriate conditions this sequence has to terminate. In this case the Willmore surface either is the twistor projection of a holomorphic curve into complex projective space or the inversion of a minimal surface with planar ends in 4-space. These results give a unified explanation of previous work on the characterization of Willmore spheres and Willmore tori with non-trivial normal bundles by various authors.
The generalized Feix--Kaledin construction shows that c-projective $2n$-manifolds with curvature of type $(1,1)$ are precisely the submanifolds of quaternionic $4n$-manifolds which are fixed points set of a special type of quaternionic $S^1$ action $v$. In this paper, we consider this construction in the presence of infinitesimal symmetries of the two geometries. First, we prove that the submaximally symmetric c-projective model with type $(1,1)$ curvature is a submanifold of a submaximally symmetric quaternionic model, and show how this fits into the construction. We give conditions for when …
We classify isometric actions of compact Lie groups on quaternionic-Kähler projective spaces with vanishing homogeneity rank. We also show that they are not in general quaternion-coisotropic.
In this paper we completely classify the homogeneous two-spheres, especially, the minimal homogeneous ones in the quaternionic projective space $\textbf{HP}^n$. According to our classification, more minimal constant curved two-spheres in $\textbf{HP}^n$ are obtained than Ohnita conjectured in the paper "Homogeneous harmonic maps into projective space, Tokyo J Math, 1990, 13(1): 87-116".
In this paper, we study totally real minimal surfaces in the quaternionic projective space $\mathbb{H}P^n$. We prove that the linearly full totally real flat minimal surfaces of isotropy order $n$ in $\mathbb{H}P^n$ are two surfaces in $\mathbb{C}P^n$, one of which is the Clifford solution, up to symplectic congruence.
We classify irreducible polar foliations of codimension $q$ on quaternionic projective spaces $\mathbb H P^n$, for all $(n,q)\neq(7,1)$. We prove that all irreducible polar foliations of any codimension (resp. of codimension one) on $\mathbb H P^n$ are homogeneous if and only if $n+1$ is a prime number (resp. $n$ is even or $n=1$). This shows the existence of inhomogeneous examples of codimension one and higher.
DeTurck and Yang have shown that in the neighbourhood of every point of a $3$-dimensional Riemannian manifold, there exists a system of orthogonal coordinates (that is, whith respect to which the metric has diagonal form). We show that this property does not generalize to higher dimensions. In particular, the complex projective spaces $\mathbb{CP}^m$ and the quaternionic projective spaces $\mathbb{HP}^q$, endowed with their canonical metrics, do not have local systems of orthogonal coordinates for $m,q\ge 2$.
Minimal Submanifolds of The Complex and Quaternionic Projective and Hyperbolic Spaces $\cn P^{2n-1}$, $\hn P^{2n-1}$, $\cn H^{2n-1}$, $\hn H^{2n-1}$ via Harmonic Morphisms
We describe a diagram containing the zero sets of the moment maps associated to the diagonal U(1) and Sp(1) actions on the quaternionic projective space HP^n. These sets are related both to focal sets of submanifolds and to Sasakian-Einstein structures on induced Hopf bundles. As an application, we construct a complex structure on the Stiefel manifolds V_2 (C^{n+1}) and V_4 (R^{n+1}), the one on the former manifold not being compatible with its known hypercomplex structure.
A conformal immersion of a 2-torus into the 4-sphere is characterized by an auxiliary Riemann surface, its spectral curve. This complex curve encodes the monodromies of a certain Dirac type operator on a quaternionic line bundle associated to the immersion. The paper provides a detailed description of the geometry and asymptotic behavior of the spectral curve. If this curve has finite genus the Dirichlet energy of a map from a 2-torus to the 2-sphere or the Willmore energy of an immersion from a 2-torus into the 4-sphere is given by the residue of a specific meromorphic differential on the cur…
Starting from a complex manifold S with a real-analytic c-projective structure whose curvature has type (1,1), and a complex line bundle L with a connection whose curvature has type (1,1), we construct the twistor space Z of a quaternionic manifold M with a quaternionic circle action which contains S as a totally complex submanifold fixed by the action. This extends a construction of hypercomplex manifolds, including hyperkaehler metrics on cotangent bundles, obtained independently by B. Feix and D. Kaledin. When S is a Riemann surface, M is a self-dual conformal 4-manifold, and the quotient o…
We prove that every projective special Kähler manifold with \emph{regular boundary behaviour} is complete and defines a family of complete quaternionic Kähler manifolds depending on a parameter $c\ge 0$. We also show that, irrespective of its boundary behaviour, every complete projective special Kähler manifold with \emph{cubic prepotential} gives rise to such a family. Examples include non-trivial deformations of non-compact symmetric quaternionic Kähler manifolds.
We call a quaternionic Kaehler manifold with non-zero scalar curvature, whose quaternionic structure is trivialized by a hypercomplex structure, a hyper-Hermitian quaternionic Kaehler manifold. We prove that every locally symmetric hyper-Hermitian quaternionic Kaehler manifold is locally isometric to the quaternionic projective space or to the quaternionic hyperbolic space. We describe locally the hyper-Hermitian quaternionic Kaehler manifolds with closed Lee form and show that the only complete simply connected such manifold is the quaternionic hyperbolic space.
We show that $3$-Sasaki structures admit a natural description in terms of projective differential geometry. This description provides a concrete link between $3$-Sasaki structures and several other geometries and constructions via a single unifying picture. First we establish that a $3$-Sasaki structure may be understood as a projective structure equipped with a certain holonomy reduction to the (possibly indefinite) unitary quaternionic group $\textrm{Sp}(p,q)$, namely a parallel hyperkähler structure on the projective tractor bundle satisfying a particular genericity condition. For the conv…
We classify all complete projective special real manifolds with reducible cubic potential, obtaining four series. For two of the series the manifolds are homogeneous, for the two others the respective automorphism group acts with co-homogeneity one. Complete projective special real manifolds give rise to complete quaternionic Kähler manifolds via the supergravity q-map, which is the composition of the supergravity c-map and r-map. We develop curvature formulas for manifolds in the image of the q-map. Applying the q-map to one of the above series of projective special real manifolds, we obtain …
We provide a classification theorem for compact stable minimal immersions (CSMI) of codimension $1$ or dimension $1$ (codimension $1$ and $2$ or dimension $1$ and $2$) in the product of a complex (quaternionic) projective space with any other Riemannian manifold. We characterize the complex minimal immersions of codimension $2$ or dimension $2$ as the only CSMI in the product of two complex projective spaces. As an application, we characterize the CSMI of codimension $1$ or dimension $1$ (codimension $1$ and $2$ or dimension $1$ and $2$) in the product of a complex (quaternionic) projective sp…
We prove that there do not exist odd-dimensional stable compact minimal immersions in the product of two complex projective spaces. We also prove that the only stable compact minimal immersions in the product of a quaternionic projective space with any other Riemannian manifold are the products of quaternionic projective subspaces with compact stable minimal immersions of the second manifold in the Riemmanian product. These generalize similar results of the second-named author of immersions with low dimensions or codimensions to immersions with arbitrary dimensions. In addition, we prove that …
We describe explicitly all quaternionic contact hypersurfaces (qc-hypersurfaces) in the flat quaternion space $\Hnn$ and the quaternion projective space. We show that up to a quaternionic affine transformation a qc-hypersurface in $\Hnn$ is contained in one of the three qc-hyperquadrics in $\Hnn$. Moreover, we show that an embedded qc-hypersurface in a hyper-Kähler manifold is qc-conformal to a qc-Einstein space and the Riemannian curvature tensor of the ambient hyper-Kähler metric is degenerate along the hypersurface.
Motivated by the analogies between the projective and the almost quaternionic geometries, we study the generalized planar curves and mappings. We follow, recover, and extend the classical approach as developed by Mikes and Sinyukov. Then we exploit the impact of the general results in the almost quaternionic geometry. In particular we show, that the natural class of H--planar curves coincides with the class of all geodesics of the so called Weyl connections and preserving this class turns out to be the necessary and sufficient condition on diffeomorphisms to become morphisms of almost quaterni…
We classify the volume preserving stable hypersurfaces in the real projective space $\mathbb{RP}^n$. As a consequence, the solutions of the isoperimetric problem are tubular neighborhoods of projective subspaces $\mathbb{RP}^k\subset \mathbb{RP}^n$ (starting with points). This confirms a conjecture of Burago and Zalgaller from 1988 and extends to higher dimensions previous result of M. Ritoré and A. Ros on $\mathbb{RP}^3$. We also derive an Willmore type inequality for antipodal invariant hypersurfaces in $\mathbb{S}^n$.
Soliton spheres are immersed 2-spheres in the conformal 4-sphere S^4=HP^1 that allow rational, conformal parametrizations f:CP^1->HP^1 obtained via twistor projection and dualization from rational curves in CP^{2n+1}. Soliton spheres can be characterized as the case of equality in the quaternionic Pluecker estimate. A special class of soliton spheres introduced by Taimanov are immersions into R^3 with rotationally symmetric Weierstrass potentials that are related to solitons of the mKdV-equation via the ZS-AKNS linear problem. We show that Willmore spheres and Bryant spheres with smooth ends a…
We find a necessary condition for the existence of an action of a Lie group $G$ by quaternionic automorphisms on an integrable quaternionic manifold in terms of representations of $\mathfrak{g}$. We check this condition and prove that a Riemannian symmetric space of dimension $4n$ for $n\geq 2$ has an invariant integrable almost quaternionic structure if and only if it is quaternionic vector space, quaternionic hyperbolic space or quaternionic projective space.
Properties of the Cauchy-Riemann-Fueter equation for maps between quaternionic manifolds are studied. Spaces of solutions in case of maps from a K3-surface to the cotangent bundle of a complex projective space are computed. A relationship between harmonic spinors of a generalized nonlinear Dirac operator and solutions of the Cauchy-Riemann-Fueter equation are established.
We use the $η$-invariant of Atiyah-Patodi-Singer to compute the Eells-Kuiper invariant for the Eells-Kuiper quaternionic projective plane. By combining with a known result of Bérard-Bergery, it shows that every Eells-Kuiper quaternionic projective plane carries a Riemannian metric such that all geodesics passing through a certain point are simply closed and of the same length.
We characterize the first min-max width of real projective spaces of any dimension. The width is the minimum area over the Clifford hypersurfaces. We also compute the Morse index of the Clifford hypersurfaces in the complex and quaternionic projective spaces.
A theorem of Lawson and Simons states that the only stable minimal submanifolds in complex projective spaces are complex submanifolds. We generalize their result to the cases of quaternionic and octonionic projective spaces. Our approach gives a unified viewpoint towards conformal and projective geometries.
In this paper we study the projective automorphism group of domains in real, complex, and quaternionic projective space and present two new characterizations of the unit ball in terms of the size of the automorphism group and the regularity of the boundary.
We prove that the supergravity r- and c-maps preserve completeness. As a consequence, any component H of a hypersurface {h=1} defined by a homogeneous cubic polynomial such that -d^2 h is a complete Riemannian metric on H defines a complete projective special Kahler manifold and any complete projective special Kahler manifold defines a complete quaternionic Kahler manifold of negative scalar curvature. We classify all complete quaternionic Kahler manifolds of dimension less or equal to 12 which are obtained in this way and describe some complete examples in 16 dimensions.
We consider the moduli space M_r of polygons with fixed side lengths in five-dimensional eucledian space. We analyze the local structure of its singularities and exhibit a real-analytic equivalence between M_r and a weighted quotient of the n-fold product of the quaternionic projective line HP^1 by the diagonal PSL(2,H)-action. We explore the relation between M_r and the fixed point set of an anti-symplectic involution on a GIT quotient Gr(2,4)^n/SL(4,C). We generalize the Gel'fand-MacPherson correspondence to more general complex Grassmannians and to the quaternionic context, and realize our …
We discuss the geometry of the c-map from projective special Kähler to quaternionic Kähler manifolds using the twist construction to provide a global approach to Hitchin's description. As found by Alexandrov et al. and Alekseevsky et al. this is related to the quaternionic flip of Haydys. We prove uniqueness statements for several steps of the construction. In particular, we show that given a hyperKähler manifold with a rotating symmetry, there is essentially only a one parameter degree of freedom in constructing a quaternionic Kähler manifold of the same dimension. We demonstrate how examples…
It is a well known result of Gromov that all manifolds of a given dimension with positive sectional curvature are subject to a universal bound on the sum of their Betti numbers. On the other hand, there is no such bound for manifolds with positive Ricci curvature: indeed, Perelman constructed positive Ricci metrics on arbitrary connected sums of complex projective planes. In this paper, we revisit and extend Perelman's techniques to construct positive Ricci metrics on arbitrary connected sums of complex, quaternionic, and octonionic projective spaces in every dimension.
We give a method to calculate spectra of the square of the Rarita-Schwinger operator on compact symmetric spaces. According to Weitzenböck formulas, the operator can be written by the Laplace operator, which is the Casimir operator on compact symmetric spaces. Then we can obtain the spectra by using the Freudenthal's formula and branching rules. As examples, we calculate the spectra on the sphere, the complex projective space, and the quaternionic projective space.
We prove that a maximal totally complex submanifold $N^{2n}$ of the quaternionic projective space $\mathbb{H}\mathbb{P}^n$ ($n\geq 2$) is a parallel submanifold, provided one of the following conditions is satisfied: (1) $N$ is the orbit of a compact Lie group of isometries, (2) the restricted normal holonomy is a proper subgroup of ${\rm U}(n)$.
We classify those manifolds mentioned in the title which have finite topological type. Namely we show any such connected M is isomorphic to a hyperkaehler quotient of a flat quaternionic vector space by an abelian group. We also show that a compact connected and simply connected 3-Sasakian manifold of dimension 4n-1 whose isometry group has rank n+1 is isometric to a 3-Sasakian quotient of a sphere by a torus. As a corollary, a compact connected quaternion-Kaehler 4n-manifold with positive scalar curvature and isometry group of rank n+1 is isometric to the quaternionic projective space or the …
Classical Delaunay surfaces are highly symmetric constant mean curvature (CMC) submanifolds of space forms. We prove the existence of Delaunay-type hypersurfaces in a large class of compact manifolds, using the geometry of cohomogeneity one group actions and variational bifurcation techniques. Our construction specializes to the classical examples in round spheres, and allows to obtain Delaunay-type hypersurfaces in many other ambient spaces, ranging from complex and quaternionic projective spaces to Kervaire exotic spheres.
