Moduli spaces of holomorphic disks in a complex manifold Z, with boundaries constrained to lie in a maximal totally real submanifold P, have recently been found to underlie a number of geometrically rich twistor correspondences. The purpose of this paper is to develop a general Fredholm regularity criterion for holomorphic curves-with-boundary, and then show how this applies, in particular, to various moduli problems of twistor-theoretic interest.
In this paper, we construct tools from the holomorphic twistor spaces that we introduced in \cite{Gindi1} to derive results about the complex geometries of their base manifolds. In particular, we develop a new approach to studying generalized Kahler manifolds that leads to insights into their real and holomorphic Poisson structures.
It is well known that the twisters, section of twister space, classify the almost complex structure on even dimensional Riemannian manifold $X$. In this paper, it will be proved that a harmonic and anti-holomorphic twister is equivalent ti a symplectic structure on $X$.
As in the case of irreducible holomorphic symplectic manifolds, the period domain $Compl$ of compact complex tori of even dimension $2n$ contains twistor lines. These are special $2$-spheres parametrizing complex tori whose complex structures arise from a given quaternionic structure. In analogy with the case of irreducible holomorphic symplectic manifolds, we show that the periods of any two complex tori can be joined by a {\em generic} chain of twistor lines. We also prove a criterion of twistor path connectivity of loci in $Compl$ where a fixed second cohomology class stays of Hodge type (1…
We study the holomorphic sections of the Deligne-Hitchin moduli space of a compact Riemann surface that are invariant under the natural anti-holomorphic involutions of the moduli space. Their relationships with the harmonic maps are established. As a bi-product, a question of Simpson on such sections, posed in \cite{Si2}, is answered.
We study twistor forms on products of compact Riemannian manifolds and show that they are defined by Killing forms on the factors. The main result of this note is a necessary step in the classification of compact Riemannian manifolds with non-generic holonomy carrying twistor forms.
We study the holomorphic vector bundles E over the twistor space Tw(M) of a compact simply connected hyperkähler manifold $M$. We give a characterization of the semistability condition for E in terms of its restrictions to the holomorphic sections of the holomorphic twistor projection π:Tw(M)\rightarrow CP^1. It is shown that if E admits a holomorphic connection, then E is holomorphically trivial and the holomorphic connection on E is trivial as well. For any irreducible vector bundle E on Tw(M) of prime rank, we prove that its restriction to the generic fibre of πis stable. On the other hand,…
Let M be a G2-manifold. We consider an almost CR-structure on the sphere bundle of unit tangent vectors on M, called the CR twistor space. This CR-structure is integrable if and only if M is a holonomy G2 manifold. We interpret G2-instanton bundles as CR-holomorphic bundles on its twistor space.
In this paper we introduce the twistor space of a Riemannian manifold with an even Clifford structure. This notion generalizes the twistor space of quaternion-Hermitian manifolds and weak-Spin(9) structures. We also construct almost complex structures on the twistor space for parallel even Clifford structures and check their integrability. Moreover, we prove that in some cases one can give Kähler and Nearly-Kähler metrics to these spaces.
We study a natural functional on the space of holomorphic sections of the Deligne-Hitchin moduli space of a compact Riemann surface, generalizing the energy of equivariant harmonic maps corresponding to twistor lines. We give a link to a natural meromorphic connection on the hyperholomorphic line bundle recently constructed by Hitchin. Moreover, we prove that for a certain class of real holomorphic sections of the Deligne-Hitchin moduli space, the functional is basically given by the Willmore energy of corresponding (equivariant) conformal map to the 3-sphere. As an application we use the func…
Let $S$ be a smooth rational curve on a complex manifold $M$. It is called ample if its normal bundle is positive. We assume that $M$ is covered by smooth holomorphic deformations of $S$. The basic example of such a manifold is a twistor space of a hyperkahler or a 4-dimensional anti-selfdual Riemannian manifold $X$ (not necessarily compact). We prove "a holography principle" for such a manifold: any meromorphic function defined in a neighbourhood $U$ of $S$ can be extended to $M$, and any section of a holomorphic line bundle can be extended from $U$ to $M$. This is used to define the notion o…
Generalization of twistor spinors to Kähler manifolds which are called Kählerian twistor spinors are considered. We find the differential equation satisfied by the bilinear forms of Kählerian twistor spinors. We show that the bilinear form equation reduces to Kählerian conformal Killing-Yano equation under special conditions. We also investigate the special cases of holomorphic and anti-holomorphic Kählerian twistor spinors and the bilinear forms of alternative definitions for Kählerian twistor spinors.
We show that given a harmonic map $φ$ from a Riemann surface to a classical compact simply connected inner symmetric space, there is a $J_2$-holomorphic twistor lift of $φ$ (or its negative) if and only if it is nilconformal. In the case of harmonic maps of finite uniton number, we give algebraic formulae in terms of holomorphic data which describes their extended solutions. In particular, this gives explicit formulae for the twistor lifts of all harmonic maps of finite uniton number from a surface to the above symmetric spaces.
With respect to the Dirac operator and the conformally invariant Laplacian, an explicit description of the inverse Penrose transform on Riemannian twistor spaces is given. A Dolbeault representative of cohomology on the twistor space is constructed from a solution of the field equation on the base manifold.
In this paper, we characterize Riemannian 4-manifold in terms of its almost Hermitian twistor spaces $(Z,g_t,\mathbb{J}_{\pm})$. Some special metric conditions (including Balanced metric condition, first Gauduchon metric condition) on $(Z,g_t,\mathbb{J}_{\pm})$ are studied. For the first Chern form of a natural unitary connection on the vertical tangent bundle over the twistor space $Z$, we can recover J. Fine and D. Panov's result on the condition of the first Chern form being symplectic and P. Gauduchon's result on the condition of the first Chern form being a (1,1)-form respectively, by usi…
We consider some classical fibre bundles furnished with almost complex structures of twistor type, deduce their integrability in some cases and study \textit{self-holomorphic} sections of a \textit{symplectic} twistor space. With these we define a moduli space of $ω$-compatible complex structures. We recall the theory of flag manifolds in order to study the Siegel domain and other domains alike, which is the fibre of the referred twistor space. Finally the structure equations for the twistor of a Riemann surface with the canonical symplectic-metric connection are deduced, based on a given conf…
Given a holomorphic principal bundle $Q\, \longrightarrow\, X$, the universal space of holomorphic connections is a torsor $C_1(Q)$ for $\text{ad} Q \otimes T^*X$ such that the pullback of $Q$ to $C_1(Q)$ has a tautological holomorphic connection. When $X\,=\, G/P$, where $P$ is a parabolic subgroup of a complex simple group $G$, and $Q$ is the frame bundle of an ample line bundle, we show that $C_1(Q)$ may be identified with $G/L$, where $L\, \subset\, P$ is a Levi factor. We use this identification to construct the twistor space associated to a natural hyper-Kähler metric on $T^*(G/P)$, reco…
An order four automorphism of a Lie algebra gives rise to an integrable system discussed by Terng. We show that solutions of this system may be identified with certain vertically harmonic twistor lifts of conformal maps of surfaces in a Riemannian symmetric space. Specialising to 4-dimensional target, we find that surfaces with holomorphic mean curvature in 4-dimensional spaces with constant sectional or holomorphic sectional curvatures constitute an integrable system as do Hamiltonian stationary Lagrangian surfaces in a 4-dimensional Hermitian symmetric space (this last being a result of Hele…
In this paper we review some results on the Riemannian and almost Hermitian geometry of twistor spaces of oriented Riemannian $4$-manifolds with emphasis on their curvature properties.
Let (M,g) be a Riemannian 4-manifold. The twistor space Z->M is a CP1-bundle whose total space Z admits a natural metric h. The aim of this article is to study properties of complex structures on (Z,h) which are compatible with the CP1-fibration and the metric h. The results obtained enable us to translate some metric properties on M in terms of complex properties on its twistor space Z.
In contrast to the classical twistor spaces whose fibres are 2-spheres, we introduce twistor spaces over manifolds with almost quaternionic structures of the second kind in the sense of P. Libermann whose fibres are hyperbolic planes. We discuss two natural almost complex structures on such a twistor space and their holomorphic functions.
On a Kähler spin manifold Kählerian twistor spinors are a natural analogue of twistor spinors on Riemannian spin manifolds. They are defined as sections in the kernel of a first order differential operator adapted to the Kähler structure, called Kählerian twistor (Penrose) operator. We study Kählerian twistor spinors and give a complete description of compact Kähler manifolds of constant scalar curvature admitting such spinors. As in the Riemannian case, the existence of Kählerian twistor spinors is related to the lower bound of the spectrum of the Dirac operator.
We characterize HKT structure in terms of nondegenrate complex Poisson bivector on hypercomplex manifold. We extend the characterization to the twistor space. After considering the flat case in detail, we show that the twistor space of hyperkaehler manifold admits a holomorphic Poisson structure. We briefly mention the relation to quaternionic and hypercomplex deformations on tori and K3 surfaces
The theory of twistors on foliated manifolds is developed and the twistor space of the normal bundle is constructed. It is demonstrated that the classical constructions of the twistor theory lead to foliated objects and permit to formulate and prove foliated versions of some well-known results on holomorphic mappings. Since any orbifold can be understood as the leaf space of a suitable defined Riemannian foliation we obtain orbifold versions of the classical results as a simple consequence of the results on foliated mappings.
We study compact complex 3-manifolds admitting holomorphic Riemannian metrics. We prove a uniformization result: up to a finite unramified cover, such a manifold admits a holomorphic Riemannian metric of constant sectionnal curvature.
The theory of slice regular functions of a quaternion variable is applied to the study of orthogonal complex structures on domains Ω of R^4. When Ω is a symmetric slice domain, the twistor transform of such a function is a holomorphic curve in the Klein quadric. The case in which Ω is the complement of a parabola is studied in detail and described by a rational quartic surface in the twistor space CP^3.
We study Yang-Mills connections on holomorphic bundles over complex Kähler manifolds of arbitrary dimension, in the spirit of Hitchin's and Simpson's study of flat connections. The space of non-Hermitian Yang-Mills (NHYM) connections has dimension twice the space of Hermitian Yang-Mills connections, and is locally isomorphic to the complexification of the space of Hermitian Yang-Mills connections (which is, by Uhlenbeck and Yau, the same as the space of stable bundles). Further, we study the NHYM connections over hyperkähler manifolds. We construct direct and inverse twistor transform from NHY…
In this paper, we provide a correspondence between certain 5-dimensional complex spacetimes and 4-dimensional twistor spaces. The spacetimes are almost contact manifolds whose curvature tensor satisfies certain conditions. By using the correspondence, we show that a 5-dimensional K-contact manifold can be obtained from the Ren-Wang twistor space, which is obtained from two copies of \C^4 identifying open subsets by a holomorphic map. From this result, the Ren-Wang twistor space can be interpreted in the framework of Itoh.
We gave an alternative short proof on the finite generation of holomorphic functions with polynomial growth on Riemann surfaces with nonnegative curvature. The first proof was due to Li and Tam.
For the twistor spaces of the Bochner-Kähler manifold $M = H^l \times P^n$, systems of holomorphic coordinates are constructed. As an application of them, an explicit description of the moduli space of relative deformations of fibers of $M$'s twistor space is given.
A hyperkaehler manifold with a circle action fixing just one complex structure admits a natural a hyperholomorphic line bundle. This forms the basis for the construction of a corresponding quaternionic Kaehler manifold in the work of A.Haydys. We construct in this paper the corresponding holomorphic line bundle on twistor space and compute many examples, including monopole and Higgs bundle moduli spaces. We also show that the bundle on twistor space has a natural meromorphic connection which realizes it as the quantum line bundle for the hyperkaehler family of holomorphic symplectic structures…
In this paper we determine the Gray-Hervella classes of the compatible almost complex structures on the twistor spaces of oriented Riemannian four-manifolds considered by G. Deschamps
We show that the $G_2$-manifolds and certain ${\rm Spin}(7)$-manifolds are endowed with natural Riemannian twistorial structures. Along the way, the exceptional holonomy representations are reviewed and other related facts are considered.
Motivated by the possible characterization of Sasakian manifolds in terms of twistor forms, we give the complete classification of compact Riemannian manifolds carrying a Killing vector field whose covariant derivative (viewed as a 2-form) is a twistor form.
We prove that given an open Riemann surface $N,$ there exists an open domain $M\subset N$ homeomorphic to $N$ which properly holomorphically embeds in $\mathbb{C}^2.$ Furthermore, $M$ can be chosen with hyperbolic conformal type. In particular, any open orientable surface admits a complex structure properly holomorphically embedding into $\mathbb{C}^2.$
We review aspects of twistor theory, its aims and achievements spanning thelast five decades. In the twistor approach, space--time is secondary with events being derived objects that correspond to compact holomorphic curves in a complex three--fold -- the twistor space. After giving an elementary construction of this space we demonstrate how solutions to linear and nonlinear equations of mathematical physics: anti-self-duality (ASD) equations on Yang--Mills, or conformal curvature can be encoded into twistor cohomology. These twistor correspondences yield explicit examples of Yang--Mills, and …
We investigate the twistor space and the Grassmannian fibre bundle of a Lorentzian 4-space with natural almost optical structures and its induced CR-structures. The twistor spaces of the Lorentzian space forms $\R^4_1, \Di{S}^4_1$ and $\Di{H}^4_1$ are explicitly discussed. The given twistor construction is applied to surface theory in Lorentzian 4-spaces. Immersed spacelike surfaces in a Lorentzian 4-space with special geometric properties like semi-umbilic surfaces and surfaces that have mean curvature of vanishing lengths correspond to holomorphic curves in the Lorentzian twistor space. For …
A Zoll metric is a Riemannian metric whose geodesics are all circles of equal length. Via the twistor correspondence of LeBrun and Mason, a Zoll metric on the 2 dimensional sphere corresponds to a family of holomorphic disks in CP_2 with boundary in a totally real submanifold P. In this paper, we show that for a fixed totally real submanifold P, such a family is unique if it exists, implying that the twistor correspondence of LeBrun and Mason is injective. One of the key ingredients in the proof is the blow-up and blow-down constructions in the sense of Melrose.
Veronese webs are rich geometric structures with deep relationships to various domains of mathematics. The PDEs which determine the Veronese web are overdetermined if dim >3, but in the case dim =3 they reduce to a special flavor of a non-linear wave equation. The symmetries embedded in the definition of a Veronese web reveal themselves as Bäcklund--Darboux transformations between these non-linear wave equations. On the other hand, the twistor transform identifies Veronese webs with moduli spaces of rational curves on certain complex surfaces. These moduli spaces can be described in terms of t…
We show that conformally compact, globally hyperbolic, Lorentzian Einstein-Weyl 3-manifolds are in natural one-to-one correspondence with orientation-reversing diffeomorphisms of the 2-sphere. The proof hinges on a holomorphic-disk analog of Hitchin's mini-twistor correspondence.
Starting from a real analytic conformal Cartan connection on a real analytic surface $S$, we construct a complex surface $T$ containing a family of pairs of projective lines. Using the structure on $S$ we also construct a complex $3$-space $Z$, such that $Z$ is a twistor space of a self-dual conformal $4$-fold and $T$ is a quotient of $Z$ by a holomorphic local $\mathbb{C}^*$ action. We prove that $T$ is a minitwistor space of an asymptotically hyperbolic Einstein-Weyl space with $S$ as an asymptotic boundary.
A Hermitian metric $ω$ on a complex manifold is called SKT or pluriclosed if $dd^cω=0$. Let M be a twistor space of a compact, anti-selfdual Riemannian manifold, admitting a pluriclosed Hermitian metric. We prove that in this case M is Kähler, hence isomorphic to $\C P^3$ or a flag space. This result is obtained from rational connectedness of the twistor space, due to F. Campana. As an aside, we prove that the moduli space of rational curves on the twistor space of a K3 surface is Stein.
The twistor space of a Riemannian 4-manifold carries two almost complex structures, $J_+$ and $J_-$, and a natural closed 2-form $ω$. This article studies limits of manifolds for which $ω$ tames either $J_+$ or $J_-$. This amounts to a curvature inequality involving self-dual Weyl curvature and Ricci curvature, and which is satisfied, for example, by all anti-self-dual Einstein manifolds with non-zero scalar curvature. We prove that if a sequence of manifolds satisfying the curvature inequality converges to a hyperkähler limit X (in the $C^2$ pointed topology) then X cannot contain a holomorph…
We study the geometry of the twistor space of the universal hyperkaehler implosion Q for SU(n). Using the description of Q as a hyperkaehler quiver variety, we construct a holomorphic map from the twistor space Z_Q of Q to a complex vector bundle over P^1, and an associated map of Q to the affine space R of the bundle's holomorphic sections. The map from Q to R is shown to be injective and equivariant for the action of SU(n) x T^{n-1} x SU(2). Both maps, from Q and from Z_Q, are described in detail for n=2 and n=3. We explain how the maps are built from the fundamental irreducible representati…
We characterise the integrability of any co-CR quaternionic structure in terms of the curvature and a generalized torsion of the connection. Also, we apply this result to obtain, for example, the following. (1) New co-CR quaternionic structures built on vector bundles over a quaternionic manifold M, whose twistor spaces are holomorphic vector bundles over the twistor space Z of M. Moreover, all the holomorphic vector bundles over Z, which are positive and isotypic when restricted to the twistor lines, are obtained this way. (2) Under generic dimensional conditions, any manifold endowed with an…
The twistor space \Z of an oriented Riemannian 4-manifold M admits a natural 1-parameter family of Riemannian metrics h_t compatible with the almost complex structures J_1 and J_2 introduced, respectively, by Atiyah, Hitchin and Singer, and Eells and Salamon. In this paper we compute the first Chern form of the almost Hermitian manifold (\Z,h_t,J_n), n=1,2 and find the geometric conditions on M under which the curvature of its Chern connection D^n is of type (1,1). We also describe the twistor spaces of constant holomorphic sectional curvature with respect to D^n and show that the Nijenhuis te…
