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# The curvature and the integrability of almost-Kähler manifolds: a survey

## 1. Introduction

Situated at the intersection of Riemannian, symplectic and complex geometry, Kähler geometry is a subject that has been intensively studied in the past half-century. The overlap of just Riemannian and symplectic geometry is thewider area of almost-Kähler geometry. Although problems specific to almost-Kähler geometry have been considered in the past (see e.g. ), it is fair to say that our knowledge beyond the Kähler context is still small at this point. In recent years there is a renewed interest in almost-Kähler geometry, mainly motivated by the rapid advances in the study of symplectic manifolds.

An almost-Kähler structure on a manifold $`M`$ of (real) dimension $`n=2m`$ is a blend of three components: a symplectic form $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, an almost-complex structure $`J`$ and a Riemannian metric $`g`$, which satisfy the compatibility relation

(1)
$$\mathrm{\Omega }(,)=g(J,).$$

Any one of these three components is completely determined by the remaining two via (1). If, additionally, the almost-complex structure $`J`$ is integrable, i.e., is induced by a complex coordinate atlas on $`M`$, then the triple $`(g,J,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ is a Kähler structure on $`M`$. In real dimension 2, the notions of almost-Kähler and Kähler structure coincide, but this is no longer true in higher dimensions. Throughout the paper strictly almost-Kähler will mean that the corresponding almost-complex structure is not integrable, equivalently, that the almost-Kähler structure is not Kähler.

Depending on whether the Riemannian metric, or the symplectic form are initially given, there are slightly different perspectives towards studying almost-Kähler structures. Given a Riemannian metric $`g`$, it is a difficult question to decide if $`g`$ admits any compatible almost-Kähler structure at all; in other words, we ask for the existence of an almost-complex structure $`J`$ such that $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ determined by (1) is a closed 2-form. It is well known that the holonomy group determines if the given metric admits a compatible Kähler structure. Comparatively, the almost-Kähler problem is considerably more intricate, even locally. For example, until recently it was still an open question whether or not metrics of constant negative sectional curvature admit compatible almost-Kähler structures. Now the answer is known to be negative as a consequence of the results in .

Starting with a symplectic manifold $`(M,\mathrm{\Omega })`$, there are many pairs $`(g,J)`$ which satisfy the compatibility relation (1) and we shall refer to any such pair as an $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$-compatible almost-Kähler structure on $`M`$. The space of all $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$-compatible almost Kähler structures — equivalently, the space of all $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$-compatible metrics (or almost-complex structures) — will be denoted by $`\mathrm{𝐀𝐊}(M,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ and is well known to be an infinite dimensional, contractible Fréchet space. The choice of an arbitrary (or generic) metric in this space serves as an useful tool in studying the symplectic geometry and topology of the manifold. This is manifested in the theory of pseudo-holomorphic curves initiated by Gromov , and more recently, in Taubes’ characterization of Seiberg-Witten invariants of symplectic 4-manifolds . Rather than dealing with generic $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$-compatible almost-Kähler metrics, the present survey is centered around the problem of identifying and studying “distinguished” Riemannian metrics in $`\mathrm{𝐀𝐊}(M,\mathrm{\Omega })`$.

One particularly nice situation would be to have an $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$-compatible Kähler metric $`g`$. In this case, the Levi-Civita connection $``$ preserves the other two structures, i.e., $`J=0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }=0`$. This leads to useful symmetry properties of basic geometric operators (like Laplacian, curvature, etc.) with respect to the complex structure, which further determine geometric and topological consequences on the manifold. However, it is now well known that in dimension higher or equal to four, most compact symplectic manifolds do not admit Kähler metrics. Thus one should require less of a compatible metric.

A good candidate for privileged Riemannian metric on a given manifold is an Einsteinmetric, i.e., a Riemannian metric $`g`$ for which

(2)
$$\mathrm{Ric}=\lambda g,$$

where $`\mathrm{Ric}`$ is the Ricci tensor and $`\lambda `$ is a constant equal, up to a factor $`\frac{1}{\mathrm{dim}_{}(M)}`$, to the scalar curvature of $`g`$. Although a remarkable amount of research in Riemannian geometry has been done to study Einstein metrics (see e.g. ), it seems that the almost-Kähler aspects of the problem remain in its infancy. A long standing, still open conjecture of Goldberg  affirms that there are no Einstein, strictly almost-Kähler metrics on a compact symplectic manifold. Indirectly, the Goldberg conjecture predicts that compatible Einstein metrics are very rare on compact symplectic manifolds. The conjecture is still far from being solved, but there are cases when it has been be confirmed: Sekigawa  proved that the conjecture is true if the scalar curvature is non-negative (see Theorem 2 below) and there are further positive partial results in dimension four under other additional curvature assumptions . Moreover, a number of subtle topological restrictions to the existence of Einstein metrics on compact 4-manifolds are now known , and these can be thought as further support for the conjecture.

Although the Goldberg conjecture is global in nature, it is the merit of John Armstrong  to point out that the local aspects of the problem will most likely determine the global ones as well. His idea was to apply Cartan-Kähler theory to prove local existence of strictly almost-Kähler Einstein structures. Because of mounting algebraic difficulties he did not achieve this goal, but he proved several other interesting results and it became clear that Cartan-Kähler theory is a very useful tool for various problems in almost-Kähler geometry. For example, it turns out that the Cartan-Kähler theory is not uniquely relevant to Einstein almost-Kähler metrics, but is also suited for the study of a more general class of almost-Kähler metrics arising from a variational approach . This approach is reviewed in section 2. After we introduce some notations and basic facts of almost-Kähler geometry in section 3, section 4 casts some of the known integrability results under the unifying framework of Cartan-Kähler theory. In section 5 we then present a number of local examples of strictly almost-Kähler manifolds with interesting curvature properties, in particular some recent local constructions of Einstein strictly almost-Kähler metrics. The material in section 6 illustrates how additional conditions on the curvature often lead to completely solvable equations. We present some recent local classification results in dimension four, which can be used to obtain further integrability results. The last section is inspired by the recent works of Donaldson  and C. LeBrun , which naturally lead to the study of Einstein-like conditions with respect to the canonical Hermitian connection. We present a brief discussion on the relevant curvature conditions and highlight some directions for further research.

## 2. A variational approach to almost-Kähler manifolds

Recall that  on a compact manifold $`M`$, the Einstein condition is the Euler-Lagrange equation of the Hilbert functional $`𝐒`$, the integral of the scalar curvature, acting on the space of all Riemannian metrics on $`M`$ of a given volume.

A “symplectic” setting of this variational problem was proposed by Blair and Ianus : restricting the Hilbert functional to the space $`\mathrm{𝐀𝐊}(M,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ of compatible metrics of a given compact symplectic manifold $`(M,\mathrm{\Omega })`$, the critical points are the almost-Kähler metrics $`(g,J)`$ whose Ricci tensor $`\mathrm{Ric}`$ is $`J`$-invariant, i.e., satisfies

(3)
$$\mathrm{Ric}(J,J)=\mathrm{Ric}(,).$$

The Euler-Lagrange equation (3) is thus a weakening of both the Einstein and the Kähler conditions. Furthermore, Blair  observed that for any almost-Kähler metric $`(g,J)`$ the following relation holds:

(4)
$$\frac{1}{4}_M|J|^2𝑑v+𝐒(g)=\frac{4\pi }{(m1)!}(c_1[\mathrm{\Omega }]^{(m1)})(M),$$

where $``$ is the Levi-Civita connection of $`g`$, $`||`$ is the point-wise norm induced by $`g`$, and $`c_1`$ and $`dv=\frac{1}{m!}\mathrm{\Omega }^m`$ are respectively the first Chern class and the volume form of $`(M,\mathrm{\Omega })`$. It follows that $`𝐒`$ is directly related to the Energy functional which acts on the space of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$-compatible almost-complex structures by

$$𝐄(J)=_M|J|^2𝑑v.$$

¿From this point of view, almost-Kähler metrics satisfying (3) have been recently studied in , and have been called there harmonic almost-Kähler metrics. However, in this paper we adopt the definition:

Definition 1. An almost-Kähler metric $`(g,J)`$ is called critical if it satisfies (3).

It follows from (4) that the functional $`𝐄`$ (resp. $`𝐒`$) is bounded from below (resp. from above), the Kähler metrics being minima of $`𝐄`$ (resp. maxima of $`𝐒`$). However, a direct variational approach to finding extrema seems not to be easily applicable since it may happen that the infimum of $`𝐄`$ be zero, although $`M`$ does not carry Kähler structures at all.

Example 1.  Let $`M=S^1\times (Nil^3/\mathrm{\Gamma })`$, where $`Nil^3`$ is the three-dimensional Heisenberg group and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is a co-compact lattice of $`Nil^3`$; as first observed by Thurston , $`M`$ is a smooth four-dimensional manifold which admits a symplectic structure but does not admit Kähler metrics at all. Specifically, $`M`$ carries an invariant complex structure $`J`$ with trivial canonical bundle, and thus comes equipped with a holomorphic symplectic structure. To see this we write

$$Nil^3=\{AGL(3,)|A=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& x& z\\ 0& 1& y\\ 0& 0& 1\end{array}\right),x,y,z\}.$$

Then the 1-forms $`dt,dx,dy,dzxdy`$ are left-invariant on $`S^1\times Nil^3`$; we define a left-invariant complex structure $`J`$ on this manifold by

$$J(dx):=dy;J(dzxdy):=dt,$$

and a holomorphic symplectic form $`\omega `$ by

$$\omega =\left(dx(dzxdy)dydt\right)+i\left(dxdt+dy(dzxdy)\right).$$

Being left-invariant, both $`J`$ and $`\omega `$ descend to $`M`$ to define a so-called Kodaira complex surface $`(M,J,\omega )`$, cf. e.g. . Note that the first Betti number of $`M`$ is equal to $`3`$, showing that no Kähler metric exists on $`M`$. On the other hand

$$\mathrm{\Omega }=\mathrm{Im}(\omega )=dxdt+dy(dzxdy)$$

is a left-invariant symplectic form. Following , we consider a 2-parameter family $`\mathrm{𝐀𝐊}(a,b),a>0,b>0,`$ of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$-compatible (left-invariant) almost-Kähler structures $`(g_{a,b},I_{a,b},\mathrm{\Omega })`$, defined by

$$g_{a,b}=\frac{1}{a^2}dx^2+\frac{1}{b^2}dy^2+a^2dt^2+b^2(dzxdy)^2;$$

$$I_{a,b}(dx):=a^2dt;I_{a,b}(dy):=b^2(dzxdy).$$

One calculates directly

$$\mathrm{Ric}(g_{a,b})=\frac{a^2b^4}{2}\left(\frac{1}{a^2}dx^2+\frac{1}{b^2}dy^2b^2(dzxdy)^2\right),$$

so that the scalar curvature is

$$s_{a,b}=\frac{a^2b^4}{2}.$$

It follows that on the space $`\mathrm{𝐀𝐊}_{a,b}`$ we have $`\mathrm{sup}(𝐇)=\mathrm{inf}(𝐄)=0`$, while $`M`$ does not carry Kähler metrics at all. $`\mathrm{}`$

In general, for a given compact symplectic manifold $`(M^{2m},\mathrm{\Omega })`$, it is tempting to compute the symplectic invariant

$$𝐄(\mathrm{\Omega })=\underset{g}{inf}_M|J|^2𝑑\mu ,$$

where the infimum is taken over all almost-Kähler structures $`(g,J)`$ compatible with $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. A natural approach to this problem is to study the (global) behavior of the solutions of the corresponding (negative) gradient flow equation

$$\frac{d}{dt}g_t=(\mathrm{Ric}^t)^{\prime \prime },$$

where $`(g_t,J_t)`$ is a path of almost-Kähler structures in $`\mathrm{𝐀𝐊}(M,\mathrm{\Omega })`$, $`\mathrm{Ric}^t`$ is the Ricci tensor of $`g_t`$ and $`(\mathrm{Ric}^t)^{\prime \prime }`$ is the gradient of $`𝐄`$, i.e.,

$$(\mathrm{Ric}^t)^{\prime \prime }(,)=\frac{1}{2}(\mathrm{Ric}^t(,)\mathrm{Ric}^t(J_t,J_t)).$$

This approach has been recently explored in . However, as Example 1 suggests, technical difficulties appear when studying global properties of the flow $`g_t`$. One reason for this is perhaps hidden in the fact that even locally the equation (3) is difficult to be solved, and our next goal is to highlight some of these “local obstructions”.

## 3. The curvature and the Nijenhuis tensor: First obstructions

### 3.1. Type-decompositions of forms and vectors.

Let $`(M,g,J,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ be an almost-Kähler manifold of real dimension $`n=2m`$. We denote by: $`TM`$ the (real) tangent bundle of $`M`$; $`T^{}M`$ the (real) cotangent bundle; $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^rM,r=1,\mathrm{},n`$ the bundle of real $`r`$-forms; $`S^{\mathrm{}}M`$ the bundle of symmetric $`\mathrm{}`$-tensors; $`(,)`$ the inner product induced by $`g`$ on these bundles (or on their tensor products).

Using the metric, we shall implicitly identify vectors and covectors and, accordingly, a 2-form $`\varphi `$ with the corresponding skew-symmetric endomorphism of the tangent bundle $`TM`$, by putting: $`(\varphi (X),Y)=\varphi (X,Y)`$ for any vector fields $`X,Y`$.

The almost-complex structure $`J`$ gives rise to a type decomposition of complex vectors and forms. By convention, $`J`$ acts on the cotangent bundle $`T^{}M`$ by $`(J\alpha )_X=\alpha _{JX}`$, so that $`J`$ commutes with the Riemannian duality between $`TM`$ and $`T^{}M`$. We shall use the standard decomposition of the complexified cotangent bundle

$$T^{}M=\mathrm{\Lambda }^{1,0}M\mathrm{\Lambda }^{0,1}M,$$

given by the $`(\pm i)`$-eigenspaces of $`J`$, the type decomposition of complex $`2`$-forms

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }^2M=\mathrm{\Lambda }^{1,1}M\mathrm{\Lambda }^{2,0}M\mathrm{\Lambda }^{0,2}M,$$

and the type decomposition of symmetric (complex) bilinear forms

$$S^2M=S^{1,1}MS^{2,0}MS^{0,2}M.$$

Besides the type decomposition of complex forms, we shall also consider the splitting of real 2-forms into $`J`$-invariant and $`J`$-anti-invariant ones; for any real section of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^2M`$ (resp. of $`S^2M`$), we shall use the super-script  to denote the projection to the real sub-bundle $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}^{1,1}M`$ (resp. $`S_{}^{1,1}M`$) of $`J`$-invariant 2-forms (resp. symmetric 2-tensors), while the super-script <sup>′′</sup> stands for the projection to the bundle $`[[\mathrm{\Lambda }^{0,2}M]]`$ (resp. $`[[S^{0,2}M]]`$) of $`J`$-anti-invariant ones; here and henceforth $`[[]]`$ denotes the real vector bundle underlying a given complex bundle. Thus, for any section $`\psi `$ of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^2M`$ (resp. of $`S^2M`$) we have the orthogonal splitting $`\psi =\psi ^{}+\psi ^{\prime \prime },`$ where

$$\psi ^{}(,)=\frac{1}{2}(\psi (,)+\psi (J,J))\text{ and }\psi ^{\prime \prime }(,)=\frac{1}{2}(\psi (,)\psi (J,J)).$$

The real bundle $`[[\mathrm{\Lambda }^{0,2}M]]`$ (resp. $`[[S^{0,2}M]]`$) inherits a canonical complex structure, still denoted by $`J`$, which is given by

$$(J\psi )(X,Y):=\psi (JX,Y),\psi [[\mathrm{\Lambda }^{0,2}M]],$$

so that $`([[\mathrm{\Lambda }^{0,2}M]],J)`$ becomes isomorphic to the complex bundle $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{0,2}M`$. We adopt a similar definition for the action of $`J`$ on $`[[S^{0,2}M]]`$. Notice that, using the metric $`g`$, $`[[S^{0,2}M]]`$ can be also viewed as the bundle of symmetric, $`J`$-anti-commuting endomorphisms of $`TM`$.

We finally define the $`U(m)`$-decomposition (with respect to $`J`$) of real 2-forms

(5)
$$\mathrm{\Lambda }^2M=\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Lambda }_0^{1,1}M[[\mathrm{\Lambda }^{0,2}M]],$$

where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_0^{1,1}M`$ is the sub-bundle of the primitive (1,1)-forms, i.e., the $`J`$-invariant 2-forms which are point-wise orthogonal to $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$.

### 3.2. Decompositions of algebraic curvature tensors

Following , we denote by $`R`$ the curvature with respect to the Levi-Civita connection $``$ of $`g`$. Classically, $`R`$ is considered as a real $`(1,3)`$-tensor on $`M`$, but, using the metric, we shall rather think of $`R`$ as a $`(0,4)`$-tensor, or as a section of the bundle $`S^2(\mathrm{\Lambda }^2M)`$ of symmetric endomorphisms of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^2M`$, depending on the context. We adopt the convention $`R_{XYZV}=(_{[X,Y]}Z[_X,_Y]Z,V);`$ the action of $`R`$ on $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^2M`$ is then defined by

$$R(\alpha \beta )_{X,Y}:=R_{\alpha ^{\mathrm{}},\beta ^{\mathrm{}},X,Y},$$

where the super-script $`\mathrm{}`$ denotes the corresponding (Riemannian) dual vector fields. Thus, the curvature $`R`$ can be viewed as a section of the symmetric tensor product $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^2M\mathrm{\Lambda }^2M`$, and satisfies the algebraic Bianchi identity

$$R_{XYZ}+R_{ZXY}+R_{YZX}=0.$$

It follows that $`R`$ is actually a section of the sub-bundle $`(M)=\mathrm{ker}(𝔢)`$, where $`𝔢:\mathrm{\Lambda }^2M\mathrm{\Lambda }^2M\mathrm{\Lambda }^4M`$ is given by $`𝔢(\varphi \varphi )=\varphi \varphi `$. The bundle $`(M)`$ is called the bundle of algebraic curvature tensors.

Recall that the Ricci contraction, $`\mathrm{Ric}`$, associates to $`R`$ the symmetric bilinear form

$$\mathrm{Ric}(X,Y)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}R_{X,e_i,Y,e_i}.$$

It can be thought as a linear map $`𝔯:(M)S^2M`$. For $`n3`$ this map is surjective and its adjoint, $`𝔯^{}`$, is injective. We thus obtain the orthogonal decomposition

$$(M)=𝔯^{}(S^2M)𝒲(M),$$

where the sub-bundle $`𝒲(M)`$ is the kernel of $`𝔯`$ and is called the bundle of algebraic Weyl tensors. Accordingly, the curvature $`R`$ splits as $`R=\widehat{\mathrm{Ric}}+W`$, where the Weyl curvature, $`W`$, is the component of $`R`$ in $`𝒲(M)`$ while $`\widehat{\mathrm{Ric}}`$ is identified with the Ricci tensor by the property $`𝔯(\widehat{\mathrm{Ric}})=\mathrm{Ric}`$. Specifically, starting from the splitting of $`\mathrm{Ric}`$ into its trace

$$s=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\mathrm{Ric}(e_i,e_i),$$

the scalar curvature of $`(M,g)`$, and its trace-free part $`\mathrm{Ric}_0=\mathrm{Ric}\frac{s}{n}g`$, we have that

$$\widehat{\mathrm{Ric}}=hg,$$

where $`h=\frac{s}{2n(n1)}g+\frac{1}{(n2)}\mathrm{Ric}_0`$ is the normalized Ricci tensor of $`(M,g)`$ and $``$ denotes the Kulkarni-Nomizu product of bilinear forms. We finally obtain the splitting of $`R`$ into three orthogonal pieces:

(6)
$$R=\frac{s}{n(n1)}\mathrm{Id}|_{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2M}+\frac{1}{(n2)}(\mathrm{Ric}_0g)+W.$$

Each of the three terms in the right-hand side of (6) is an element of $`(M)`$; the corresponding sub-bundle of $`(M)`$ is attached to an irreducible representation of the orthogonal group $`O(n)`$ acting on $`(^n)`$, namely the trivial representation, the Cartan product $`^n^n`$ and the product $`𝔬(n)𝔬(n)`$ where the Lie algebra $`𝔬(n)`$ is identified with $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^2^n`$. Note that the Einstein equations for a Riemannian metric $`g`$ correspond to the vanishing of the component $`\frac{1}{(n2)}(\mathrm{Ric}_0g)`$ of $`R`$; equivalently, the Ricci tensor satisfies $`\mathrm{Ric}=\frac{s}{n}g`$, in which case the scalar curvature $`s`$ is necessarily constant. Recall also that a manifold with zero Weyl tensor is conformally flat.

In dimension four, one can further refine the splitting (6) by fixing an orientation on $`(M,g)`$ and considering the Hodge $``$-operator which acts on the bundle $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^2M`$ as an involution, thus giving rise to an orthogonal splitting of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^2M`$ into the sum of the $`\pm `$-eigenspaces, the bundles of self-dual and anti-self-dual 2-forms. Consequently, the Weyl tensor also decomposes as $`W^++W^{}`$, where $`W^+=\frac{1}{2}(W+W)`$ is the part acting on self-dual forms, while $`W^{}=\frac{1}{2}(WW)`$ is the restriction of $`W`$ to the bundle of anti-self-dual forms. An oriented Riemannian 4-manifold $`(M,g)`$ is called self-dual (resp. anti-self-dual) if its Weyl tensor is self-dual (re sp. anti-self-dual), i.e., if $`W^{}0`$ (resp. $`W^+0`$).

We now assume that $`n=2m`$ is even and that $`(M^{2m},g)`$ is endowed with a $`g`$-orthogonal almost-complex structure $`J`$, i.e., $`(g,J)`$ is an almost-Hermitian structure on $`M`$. Representation theory of the unitary group $`U(m)`$ implies the splitting of the bundle $`(^m)`$ into irreducible factors, each of them defining a curvature component of $`R`$ with respect to $`J`$, cf. . Thus, for $`n8`$, $`R`$ has $`10`$ different curvature components; for $`n=6`$, we have $`9`$ curvature components, while for $`n=4`$ one gets $`7`$ different curvature components. Note that the most natural special types of almost-Hermitian manifolds correspond to the vanishing of some of these components.

The following $`U(m)`$-invariant sub-bundles of $`(M)`$ arise naturally :

1. $`𝒦(M)=\{R(M):R_{JXJY}=R_{XY}\}`$ is the sub-bundle of elements acting trivially on $`[[\mathrm{\Lambda }^{2,0}M]]`$. The curvature of any Kähler metric belongs to $`𝒦(M)`$, so $`𝒦(M)`$ is usually referred to as the bundle of kählerian algebraic curvature tensors.
2. $`_2(M)=\{R(M):R_{XYZW}R_{JXJYZW}=R_{JXYJZW}+R_{JXYZJW}\}`$ is the sub-bundle of elements preserving the type decomposition (3.1) of complex 2-forms; equivalently, these are the elements of $`(M)`$ which preserve the splitting (5) and commute with the complex structure of $`[[\mathrm{\Lambda }^{0,2}M]]`$.
3. $`_3(M)=\{R(M):R_{JXJYJZJT}=R_{XYZT}\}`$ is the sub-bundle of elements of $`(M)`$ preserving the type decomposition (5) of real 2-forms.

Note that $`𝒦(M)_2(M)_3(M)`$, and for any almost-Hermitian manifold $`(M,g,J)`$ whose curvature tensor belongs to $`_3(M)`$, the Ricci tensor satisfies (3).

Each of the above sub-bundles can be further decomposed into irreducible factors. For instance, the bundle $`𝒦(M)`$ splits into three pieces, associated respectively to the trivial representation of $`U(m)`$, to the Cartan product $`^m^m`$, and to $`𝔲(m)𝔲(m)`$. Corresponding to the trivial factor is the curvature of a complex space form (so that this component can be identified to the scalar curvature), the second factor is identified to the traceless Ricci tensor, while the third component is the so-called Bochner curvature; for more details see .

We further denote by $`W^{\prime \prime }`$ the component of the curvature operator defined by

$$W_{XYZT}^{\prime \prime }=\frac{1}{8}(R_{XYZT}R_{JXJYZT}R_{XYJZJT}+R_{JXJYJZJT}$$

$$R_{XJYZJT}R_{JXYZJT}R_{XJYJZT}+R_{JXYJZT}).$$

It follows that

$$W_{Z_1Z_2Z_3Z_4}^{\prime \prime }=R_{Z_1Z_2Z_3Z_4}=W_{Z_1Z_2Z_3Z_4}Z_iT^{1,0}M,$$

which explains the notation.

Let us also introduce the following Ricci-type curvature tensors of an almost-Hermitian manifold:

1. the invariant and the anti-invariant parts of the Ricci tensor with respect to $`J`$, denoted by $`\mathrm{Ric}^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{Ric}^{\prime \prime }`$ respectively. We also put $`\rho (,)=\mathrm{Ric}^{}(J,)`$ to be the (1,1)-form corresponding to the $`J`$-invariant part of $`\mathrm{Ric}`$, which will be called Ricci form of $`(M,g,J)`$.
2. the twisted Ricci form $`\rho ^{}=R(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ which is not, in general, $`J`$-invariant. We will consequently denote by $`(\rho ^{})^{}`$ and $`(\rho ^{})^{\prime \prime }`$ the corresponding projections onto the bundles $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}^{1,1}M`$ and $`[[\mathrm{\Lambda }^{0,2}M]]`$, respectively. Following , the trace of $`\rho ^{}`$, $`s^{}=2(R(\mathrm{\Omega }),\mathrm{\Omega })`$, will be called $``$-scalar curvature.

For a Kähler manifold $`\rho =\rho ^{}`$ is the usual Ricci form which is closed, of type (1,1) and represents (up to a scaling factor $`\frac{1}{2\pi }`$) the de Rham cohomology of the first Chern class of $`(M,J)`$. Neither of these properties remains true for a generic almost-Kähler manifold.

### 3.3. The Nijenhuis tensor

The Nijenhuis tensor (or complex torsion) of an almost-complex structure $`J`$ is defined by

$$N_{X,Y}=[JX,JY]J[JX,Y]J[X,JY][X,Y].$$

Thus, $`N`$ is a 2-form with values in $`TM`$, which by Newlander-Nirenberg theorem  vanishes if and only if $`J`$ is integrable. Alternatively, the Nijenhuis tensor can be viewed as a map from $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{1,0}M`$ to $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{0,2}M`$ in the following manner: given a complex (1,0)-form $`\psi `$, we define by $`\psi `$ and $`\overline{}\psi `$ the projectors of $`d\psi `$ to $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{2,0}M`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{1,1}M`$, respectively. In general, $`d+\overline{}`$, as $`d\psi `$ can also have a component of type (0,2), which we denote by $`N(\psi )`$; writing $`\psi =\alpha +iJ\alpha `$ where $`\alpha `$ is a real 1-form, one calculates

$$N(\psi )_{X,Y}=\frac{1}{2}\alpha (N_{X,Y})=\frac{1}{4}\psi (N_{X,Y}),X,YT^{0,1}M.$$

For an almost-Kähler manifold the vanishing of $`N`$ is equivalent to $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ being parallel with respect to the Levi-Civita connection $``$ of $`g`$; specifically, the following identity holds (cf. e.g. ):

$$(_X\mathrm{\Omega })(,)=\frac{1}{2}(JX,N(,)).$$

Using the above relation, we shall often think of $`N`$ as a $`T^{}M`$-valued 2-form, or as a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^2M`$-valued 1-form, by tacitly identifying $`N`$ with $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. Further, since $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is closed and $`N`$ is a $`J`$-anti-invariant 2-form with values in $`TM`$, one easily deduces that $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is, in fact, a section of the vector bundle $`[[\mathrm{\Lambda }^{0,1}M\mathrm{\Lambda }^{0,2}M]]`$, i.e., the following relation holds:

(7)
$$_{JX}J=J(_XJ),XTM.$$

### 3.4. The Weitzenböck decomposition of the symplectic form

Let $`\delta `$ be the codifferential of $`g`$, acting on (real) $`r`$-tensors by

$$(\delta T)_{X_1,\mathrm{},X_{r1}}=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}(_{e_i}T)_{e_i,X_1,\mathrm{},X_{r1}},$$

where $`\{e_i\}_{i=1}^n`$ is any orthonormal frame. Note that when acting on $`r`$-forms, $`\delta `$ is the formal adjoint operator to the exterior differential $`d`$; the two operators are then related via the Hodge star-operator $`_g`$:

$$\delta =_g_gd.$$

Then, the operator $`\mathrm{\Delta }=d\delta +\delta d`$, which acts on the smooth sections of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^rM`$, is the Hodge-de Rham Laplacian of $`(M,g)`$; we also consider the rough Laplacian, $`^{}`$, which for any smooth $`r`$-form, $`\psi `$, gives $`^{}\psi :=\delta (\psi )`$, again an $`r`$-form. The two Laplacians are related by a Weitzenböck decomposition

$$\mathrm{\Delta }=^{}+A(R),$$

where $`A`$ depends linearly on the curvature $`R`$ of $`(M,g)`$, see e.g. . For example, the Weitzenböck decomposition on 2-forms reads as:

$`\mathrm{\Delta }\psi ^{}\psi `$ $`=`$ $`[\mathrm{Ric}(\psi ,)\mathrm{Ric}(,\psi )]2R(\psi )`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2(m1)}{m(2m1)}}s\psi 2W(\psi )`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{(m2)}{(m1)}}[\mathrm{Ric}_0(\psi ,)\mathrm{Ric}_0(,\psi )].`$
The symplectic form $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is a real harmonic 2-form of type $`(1,1)`$ with respect to any compatible almost-Kähler metric $`(g,J)`$, i.e.

$$\mathrm{\Omega }(J,J)=\mathrm{\Omega }(,),d\mathrm{\Omega }=0\text{ and }\delta \mathrm{\Omega }=0.$$

Applying relation (3.4) to $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, we obtain

(9)
$$^{}\mathrm{\Omega }=2R(\mathrm{\Omega })[\mathrm{Ric}(J,)\mathrm{Ric}(,J)].$$

Formula (9) is a measure of the difference of the two types of Ricci forms on an almost-Kähler manifold:

(10)
$$\rho ^{}\rho =\frac{1}{2}(^{}\mathrm{\Omega }).$$

Taking the inner product with $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ of the relation (10), we obtain the difference of the two types of scalar curvatures:

(11)
$$s^{}s=|\mathrm{\Omega }|^2=\frac{1}{2}|J|^2.$$

Formulae (10) and (11) can be interpreted as “obstructions” to the (local) existence of a strictly almost-Kähler structure $`J`$, compatible with a given metric $`g`$. Indeed, if we denote by $`P`$ the curvature type operator acting on $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^2M`$ by

$$P(\psi )=\frac{2(m1)}{m(2m1)}s\psi 2W(\psi ),$$

then, by (3.4) and (11), $`(P(\mathrm{\Omega }),\mathrm{\Omega })=|\mathrm{\Omega }|^20`$. This shows that Riemannian metrics for which $`P`$ is semi-positive definite do not admit even locally compatible strictly almost-Kähler structures . Note that the latter curvature condition is implied by the non-negativity of the isotropic sectional curvatures. The following compilation of results is an illustration of this criterion of non-existence:

###### Proposition 1.

Let $`(M,g)`$ be a Riemannian manifold of dimension $`n=2m`$, which satisfies one of the following conditions:

1. $`M`$ is four-dimensional and oriented, and $`g`$ is anti-self-dual metric of non-negative scalar curvature;
2. $`(M,g)`$ is a conformally-flat manifold of non-negative scalar curvature;
3. $`(M,g)`$ is a symmetric space of compact type.

Then, $`(M,g)`$ does not admit even locally defined strictly almost-Kähler structures (which are also compatible with the fixed orientation in the case (i)).

Remark. The situation dramatically changes if one considers symmetric spaces of non-compact type, see Proposition 4 below. $`\mathrm{}`$

## 4. Cartan-Kähler Theory: Further obstructions

In this section, which is inspired from  (see also ), we shall consider the problem of local existence of Einstein almost-Kähler metrics. By Darboux’s theorem, it is enough to look for Einstein metrics

$$g=\underset{i,j=1}{\overset{2m}{}}g_{ij}(x)dx_idx_j$$

compatible with the standard symplectic form

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_0=\underset{i=1}{\overset{m}{}}dx_idx_{m+i}$$

on an open set of $`^{2m}=\{x=(x_1,\mathrm{},x_{2m})\}`$. By a result of DeTurck and Kazdan , any Einstein metric is real analytic (in suitable local coordinates), so that it is also natural to require the analyticity of the components $`g_{ij}(x)`$ of the metric.

The Ricci curvature can be thought as a non-linear second-order differential operator

$$\mathrm{Ric}:\mathrm{𝐀𝐊}(\mathrm{\Omega }_0)g\mathrm{Ric}(g)\mathrm{\Gamma }(S^2)$$

acting on the space of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$-compatible almost-Kähler metrics. Here and henceforth, $`S^l`$ stands for the bundle of symmetric $`l`$-tensors on $`^{2m}`$. For a fixed $`J\mathrm{𝐀𝐊}(\mathrm{\Omega }_0)`$, let $`E=[[S^{0,2}]]`$ denote the corresponding bundle of $`J`$-anti-invariant elements of $`S^2`$ (see section 2.1). Then the space of smooth sections of $`E`$ is naturally identified with the tangent space of $`\mathrm{𝐀𝐊}(\mathrm{\Omega }_0)`$ at $`(g,J)`$, and the principal symbol $`\sigma (\mathrm{Ric})`$ of the Ricci operator is a bundle-map

$$\sigma (\mathrm{Ric}):S^2ES^2$$

given by

$$\sigma (\mathrm{Ric})(C)_{X,Y}=\frac{1}{2}\underset{i=1}{\overset{2m}{}}\left[C_{e_i,X,e_i,Y}+C_{e_i,Y,e_i,X}C_{e_i,e_i,X,Y}C_{X,Y,e_i,e_i}\right]$$

for any section $`C`$ of $`S^2E`$ (see e.g. ). One can easily check that this map is surjective. This shows that for any symmetric $`(2m\times 2m)`$-matrix $`r_0`$ with constant coefficients there are metrics $`g`$ which are compatible with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ and such that, at a given point $`x_0^{2m}`$, we have $`\mathrm{Ric}(g)_{x_0}=r_0`$; in other words, at any given point $`x_0`$ and for any $`r\mathrm{\Gamma }(S^2)`$, one can always find point-wise (or algebraic) solutions to the equation $`\mathrm{Ric}(g)_{x_0}=r_{x_0}`$. Similarly, at any point $`x_0`$ and for any value $`\lambda `$, one can find a metric $`g\mathrm{𝐀𝐊}(\mathrm{\Omega }_0)`$ for which $`\mathrm{Ric}(g)_{x_0}=\lambda g_{x_0}`$. The next question is whether or not a point-wise solution can be extended to a real analytic solution defined in a neighborhood of the point. A coordinate-free realization of the Cauchy-Kowalewski theorem, known as the Cartan-Kähler theory, gives a method of answering this question and we refer the reader to  for details and references relevant to this method. We recall here that the basic idea behind Cartan-Kähler theory is a simple one: one builds up order by order real analytic solutions to the given system of differential equations, by using the point-wise solutions.

Although Cartan-Kähler theory is usually used as a tool of proving existence results, in  a different aspect of the theory is emphasized. It also provides a method to find non-obvious conditions — which we shall refer to in this paper as “obstructions”, but which are called “torsion” in  — that solutions of a differential equation must satisfy. These obstructions encapsulate in an invariant manner the elementary fact that derivatives in different coordinate directions must commute. We shall write down in an explicit way such local obstructions to finding critical almost-Kähler metrics and use them to prove the integrability of the almost-complex structure in the compact case, provided that certain additional curvature conditions are satisfied. Thus, Cartan-Kähler theory will be used to prove non-existence results. On the other hand, because of algebraic difficulties in applying the theory to its end, no general existence result has been proven so far.

Suppose that one wishes to apply the Cartan-Kähler theory (as described in ) in order to prove that strictly almost-Kähler Einstein metrics exist. We have already seen that one can always find examples of 2-jets of compatible metrics which satisfy $`\mathrm{Ric}(g)=\lambda g`$; the next question is whether or not one can find algebraic examples of 3-jets satisfying this equation and its first derivative — i.e. whether or not one can find algebraic solutions to the first prolongation of the problem. The symbol of the first prolongation, $`\sigma _1(\mathrm{Ric})`$, is a bundle map

$$\sigma _1(\mathrm{Ric}):S^3ET^{}S^2.$$

By calculating the dimension of the image of $`\sigma _1(\mathrm{Ric})`$, one sees that this map is not onto. To see this directly, recall that the differential Bianchi identity implies $`\delta \mathrm{Ric}=\frac{1}{2}ds,`$ where, we recall, $`\delta `$ is the co-differential of $`g`$ and $`s=\mathrm{trace}_g(\mathrm{Ric})`$ is the scalar curvature. If we can extend a 2-jet solution of the Einstein equation to a 3-jet solution, we must have $`d\lambda =0`$; we thus have found an obstruction to extending the 2-jet solution to a 3-jet solution, which simply tells us that an Einstein metric has constant scalar curvature. If we denote by $`𝔟:T^{}S^2T^{}`$ the equivariant map

$$𝔟(C)_X=\underset{i=1}{\overset{2m}{}}(C_{e_i,e_i,X}\frac{1}{2}C_{X,e_i,e_i}),$$

then we have the exact sequence:

$$0S^3E\stackrel{\sigma _1\left(\mathrm{Ric}\right)}{}T^{}S^2\stackrel{𝔟}{}T^{}0.$$

This tells us that this is the only such obstruction.

Exactly the same obstruction arises for the more general problem of finding Einstein metrics when one does not insist that the metric is compatible with the symplectic form. It turns out that if one is looking for metrics not necessarily compatible with a symplectic form, then there are no further obstructions and the Cartan-Kähler theorem allows one to conclude that there is a germ of local solutions to the general Einstein equations.

###### Theorem 1.

 Let $`R_0`$ be a given algebraic curvature tensor at the origin in $`^n,n3`$ (see section 3.2), and let $`g_0`$ be an algebraic (Riemannian) metric such that the Ricci tensor of $`R_0`$ with respect to $`g_0`$ is equal to $`\lambda g_0`$ for some constant $`\lambda `$. Then there is a real analytic metric $`g`$ defined in a neighborhood of the origin, such that

1. $`g_{x=0}=g_0`$ and $`(R^g)_{x=0}=R_0`$;
2. $`\mathrm{Ric}(g)=\lambda g`$.

Turning back to our initial problem of finding Einstein almost-Kähler metrics, one should notice that if we could extend the above result to the case of metrics compatible with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$, then strictly almost-Kähler solutions would automatically exist by taking any 2-jet solution $`(g_0,J_0)`$ of the Einstein equations, for which the curvature $`R_0`$ does not belong to the space of kählerian algebraic tensors with respect to $`J_0`$; for instance, just by calculating dimensions, one sees that there are algebraic 2-jet solutions to the Einstein equation such that $`W_0^{\prime \prime }0`$ (see section 3.2).

One then naturally wonders, are there any higher obstructions to extending $`\mathrm{}`$-jet algebraic solutions of the Einstein equations to $`(\mathrm{}+1)`$-jet solutions, but this time in the setting of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$-compatible metrics? Unfortunately, it turns out that there are. Indeed, letting $`\sigma _2(\mathrm{Ric})`$ be the symbol of the second prolongation, it turns out  that the sequence

$$0S^4E\stackrel{\sigma _2\left(\mathrm{Ric}\right)}{}S^2S^2\stackrel{\sigma _1\left(𝔟\right)}{}T^{}T^{}0$$

is not exact. By calculating the dimension of the image of $`\sigma _2(\mathrm{Ric})`$ one can see that there must be an equivariant bundle-map $`𝔠:S^2S^2`$ such that

$$0S^4E\stackrel{\sigma _2\left(\mathrm{Ric}\right)}{}S^2S^2\stackrel{\sigma _1\left(𝔟\right)𝔠}{}T^{}T^{}0$$

is exact. Thus, there is some obstruction to extending $`3`$-jet solutions of the Einstein equations in the almost-Kähler setting.

The above theory does not lead in a particularly simple way to finding the obstruction in an explicit form. It merely tells us that there is such an obstruction and that we have to examine the 4-jet of the metric to find it — even though eventually the obstruction takes the form of a condition on the 3-jet.

The explicit calculations for obtaining the obstruction in most general form have been carried out in  (in the four dimensional case) and have been later extended in  for the case of higher dimensional almost-Kähler manifolds; as a final result, we obtain a general identity which holds for any almost-Kähler manifold. In particular cases this identity was found in . To state our result, we introduce

(12)
$$\varphi (X,Y)=(_{JX}\mathrm{\Omega },_Y\mathrm{\Omega }),$$

which, by (7), is a semi-positive definite $`(1,1)`$ form. We then have

###### Proposition 2.

 For any almost-Kähler structure $`(g,J,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ the following relation holds (notations of section 3):

$`\delta \left(J\delta (J\mathrm{Ric}^{\prime \prime })\right)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\mathrm{\Delta }(|\mathrm{\Omega }|^2)+2\delta \left((\rho ^{},_{}\mathrm{\Omega })\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}|\mathrm{Ric}^{\prime \prime }|^2|(\rho ^{})^{\prime \prime }|^2`$
$`2|W^{\prime \prime }|^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}|(^{}\mathrm{\Omega })^{}|^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}|\varphi |^2+(\rho ,\varphi )(\rho ,^{}\mathrm{\Omega }).`$
In the case of an Einstein manifold, the above relation reduces to

$$8\delta \left((\rho ^{},_{}\mathrm{\Omega })\right)\mathrm{\Delta }(|\mathrm{\Omega }|^2)=8|W^{\prime \prime }|^2+4|(\rho ^{})^{\prime \prime }|^2+|(^{}\mathrm{\Omega })^{}|^2+|\varphi |^2+\frac{s}{n}|\mathrm{\Omega }|^2;$$

this condition on the 3-jet of an Einstein, almost-Kähler manifold is precisely the obstruction referred to earlier.

Suppose $`M`$ is a compact Einstein, almost-Kähler manifold of positive or zero scalar curvature. After integrating the above relation over the manifold, we obtain the following result due to Sekigawa.

###### Theorem 2.

 A compact Einstein, almost-Kähler manifold of non-negative scalar curvature is necessarily Kähler .

More generally, (2) provides a non-trivial relation on the 3-jet of any critical metric, which can be also viewed as an obstruction for the solvability of Equation (3). In the case of a (connected) critical almost-Kähler 4-manifold whose curvature component $`W^{\prime \prime }`$ identically vanishes, this relation implies a strong maximum principle for the Nijenhuis tensor $`N`$ : if $`N`$ vanishes at one point, then $`N`$ is identically ze ro on $`M`$. It follows that on any (connected) compact critical strictly almost-Kähler 4-manifold with $`W^{\prime \prime }=0`$, the complex rank 2 bundle $`L=\mathrm{\Lambda }^{0,1}M\mathrm{\Lambda }^{0,2}M`$ has a nowhere vanishing (real) smooth section, the Nijenhuis tensor $`N`$ (see section 3.3). As observed by J. Armstrong , the latter in turn implies strong topological consequences via the Chern-Weil-Wu formulae:

$$0=c_2(L)(M)=(2c_1^2+c_2)(M)=(5\chi +6\sigma )(M),$$

where $`c_2(L),c_1`$ and $`c_2`$ are the Chern classes of the (rank 2) complex bundles $`L`$ and $`TM`$, while $`\chi `$ and $`\sigma `$ are the Euler characteristic and the signature of $`M`$. Combining with the Hitchin-Thorpe inequality $`(2\chi \pm 3\sigma )(M)0`$ in the Einstein case , we obtain the following integrability result.

###### Theorem 3.

 Let $`(g,J)`$ be a critical almost-Kähler metric on a compact symplectic 4-manifold $`(M,\mathrm{\Omega })`$. Suppose that $`W^{\prime \prime }=0`$ (see section 3.2). Then $`(g,J)`$ is Kähler provided that $`(5\chi +6\sigma )(M)0`$. In particular, a compact Einstein, almost-Kähler 4-manifold is Kähler if and only if $`W^{\prime \prime }=0`$.

One might further ask if there are any other obstructions to finding almost-Kähler Einstein metrics. For that we consider the third order differential operator

$$O_1(g)=\mathrm{\Delta }(|\mathrm{\Omega }|^2)8\delta \left((\rho ^{},_{}\mathrm{\Omega })\right)+8|W^{\prime \prime }|^2+4|(\rho ^{})^{\prime \prime }|^2+|(^{}\mathrm{\Omega })^{}|^2+|\varphi |^2+\frac{s}{n}|\mathrm{\Omega }|^2$$

and try to solve the modified system

$$\mathrm{Ric}(g)\lambda g=0,O_1(g)=0.$$

J. Armstrong  showed that there are at least two further obstructions arising in this manner. The first one is an obstruction to lifting the 4-jet to the 5-jet solution of the above system, which in the case of 4-manifolds corresponds to a bundle-map

$$𝔡:S^3MS^2MS^2M\mathrm{\Lambda }^{1,1}M\mathrm{\Lambda }_0^{1,1}M.$$

Finding the above mentioned obstructions in an explicit form seems to be a difficult task, even in the case of 4-manifolds. However, along the lines of , one sees that a certain component of $`𝔡`$,

$$𝔡_{}:S^2MS^2M,$$

should correspond to a relation expressing the term $`(^{}N,N)`$ with lower jets of $`(g,J)`$, where $`N`$ is the Nijenhuis tensor of $`J`$, also identified to $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ via the metric, see section 3.3. We can write down the relation corresponding to $`𝔡_{}`$ by specifying the Weitzenböck decomposition of $`TM`$-valued 2-forms for the particular section $`N`$. This is done in  (see also ).

###### Proposition 3.

 For any almost-Kähler 4-manifold $`(M,g,J,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ the following relation holds

$`\delta \left(J\delta (J\mathrm{Ric}^{\prime \prime })\right)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\mathrm{\Delta }(|\mathrm{\Omega }|^2)\delta \delta (\mathrm{Ric}^{\prime \prime })\delta \left((\rho ^{},_{}\mathrm{\Omega })\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}|\mathrm{Ric}^{\prime \prime }|^2+|(\rho ^{})^{\prime \prime }|^2`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}|(^2\mathrm{\Omega })_0^{\mathrm{sym}}|^2{\displaystyle \frac{3}{32}}|\mathrm{\Omega }|^4|W^{\prime \prime }|^2{\displaystyle \frac{s}{4}}|\mathrm{\Omega }|^2(\rho ,\varphi ),`$
where $`(^2\mathrm{\Omega })_0^{\mathrm{sym}}`$ is the image of $`^2\mathrm{\Omega }`$ under the bundle map $`(T^{}M)^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2MS_0^2M\mathrm{\Lambda }^2M`$, which acts as the identity on the second factor and in the first factor takes the trace free part of the symmetrization.

Combining the two obstructions given by Propositions 2 and 3, and taking into account that in $`4`$-dimension $`(^{}\mathrm{\Omega })^{}=\frac{|\mathrm{\Omega }|^2}{2}\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`|\varphi |^2=\frac{|\mathrm{\Omega }|^4}{4}`$, one derives the following integrability result.

###### Theorem 4.

 Let $`(M,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ be a compact, 4-dimensional symplectic manifold with $`(c_1[\mathrm{\Omega }])(M)0`$. Let $`(g,J)`$ be an $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$-compatible, critical almost-Kähler metric and assume that one of the following is satisfied:

(a) the scalar curvature $`s`$ is non-negative;

(b) the scalar curvature $`s`$ is constant.
Then $`(g,J)`$ is necessarily a Kähler structure.

Remarks. 1. Note that if the scalar curvature is non-negative, then the condition $`(c_1[\mathrm{\Omega }])(M)0`$ is automatically satisfied because of (4). For the case (b), it is a priori open the possibility that the scalar curvature is a negative constant, although a posteriori, the result shows that this cannot be the case, again because of (4). It would be interesting to see if the result is still valid without any of the conditions (a) or (b).

2. The above theorem should be seen in the vein of the recent classification results of ; accordingly, any compact symplectic 4-manifold which admits a metric of positive scalar curvature is deformation equivalent to a rational or a ruled Kähler surface. It is also known  that these manifolds admit Kähler structures of positive scalar curvature.

3. As observed in , the integrability results stated in theorems 2 and 4 hold true for compact almost-Kähler orbifolds. $`\mathrm{}`$

## 5. Examples of critical almost-Kähler metrics

In this section we review some (mostly non-compact) examples of critical (Einstein) strictly almost-Kähler metrics. We first make the remark that given such a manifold we can take its product with any Kähler (Einstein) manifold to produce examples of higher dimension. We will be therefore interested in irreducible (i.e. non-product) examples.

### 5.1. The Bérard Bergery construction

Starting from a critical (Einstein) strictly almost-Kähler manifold $`(M^{2m},g,J,\mathrm{\Omega })`$, there is a method of producing higher dimensional non-product examples, due to L. Bérard Bergery  (see also \[16, Th.9.129\]). We take an $`S^1`$-bundle $`P`$ over $`M`$, whose curvature is a multiple of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. Then the almost-Kähler structure on $`M`$ induces a $`K`$-contact structure on $`P`$ (see e.g. ) and further, a critical strictly almost-Kähler structure on the “symplectisation” $`N^{2(m+1)}=P\times `$ of $`P`$ (see also ); the metric on $`N`$ is complete provided that $`M`$ is compact. Furthermore, if $`M`$ is Einstein, then the strictly almost-Kähler metric on $`N`$ is also Einstein (with scalar curvature smaller than the one of $`M`$). The reader is referred to  for more details on the construction.

By applying this procedure to the next examples, one can construct many strictly almost-Kähler critical/Einstein manifolds.

### 5.2. Twistorial examples

For a given oriented Riemannian 4-manifold $`(M,g)`$, the set of all almost-Hermitian structures compatible with the metric and the orientation can be naturally identified with the set of sections of the sphere bundle $`S(\mathrm{\Lambda }^+M)`$, by identifying each positively oriented almost-Hermitian structure $`(g,J)`$ with its (normalized) fundamental 2-form $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}g(J,)`$. The total space $`Z`$ of $`S(\mathrm{\Lambda }^+M)`$ is called (positive) twistor space of $`(M,g)`$. Thus, $`Z`$ can be viewed as an $`SO(4)/U(2)`$ fibre-bundle associated to the canonical principal $`O(4)`$-bundle $`P`$ of $`(M,g)`$, i.e., $`ZP\times _{O(4)}(SO(4)/U(2))`$. Denote by $`p:ZM`$ the natural projection; the vertical distribution $`𝒱=`$Ker$`(p_{})`$ inherits a canonical complex structure $`J^𝒱`$ coming from the natural complex structure of the fibre $`P^1=SO(4)/U(2)`$. Moreover, the Levi-Civita connection $``$ of $`(M,g)`$ induces a splitting $`TZ=𝒱`$ of the tangent bundle of $`Z`$ into horizontal and vertical components, so that $`p_{}^1TM`$ acquires a tautological complex structure $`J^{}`$ given by $`J_{x,j}^{}=j`$ for $`xM`$ and $`jp^1(x)P^1`$. Following , we define an almost-complex structure $`J`$ on $`Z`$, by

$`J`$ $`=`$ $`J^{}J^𝒱.`$
Using the splitting of the tangent bundle of $`Z`$ into horizontal and vertical components, one also determines a family of Riemannian metrics $`h`$ on $`Z`$

$$h_t=p^{}g+tg_{P^1},t>0,$$

where $`g_{P^1}`$ is the standard metric (of constant curvature $`1`$) on the fibre $`P^1`$. Clearly, $`h_t`$ is compatible with $`J`$. We then have the following

###### Theorem 5.

 The almost-Hermitian 6-manifold $`(Z,h_t,J)`$ is almost-Kähler if and only if $`(M,g)`$ is Einstein, anti-self-dual 4-manifold of negative scalar curvature $`s=\frac{12}{t}`$. Moreover, in this case $`(h_{\frac{12}{s}},J)`$ is strictly almost-Kähler structure whose curvature tensor belongs to $`_2(Z)`$; in particular, it is a critical, strictly almost-Kähler metric on $`Z`$.

Example 2. The only known examples of compact Einstein self-dual 4-manifolds of negative scalar curvature are compact quotients of the real hyperbolic space $`H^4`$, or of the complex hyperbolic space $`H^2`$, where the quotients of $`H^2`$ are considered with the non-standard orientation (so that the induced metric is anti-self-dual). Let $`(M,g)`$ be such a quotient and by rescaling the metric, suppose that the scalar curvature is equal to $`12`$. According to Theorem 5 the twistor space $`(Z,h_1,J)`$ is then a compact locally-homogeneous critical almost-Kähler 6-manifold whose curvature belongs to $`_2(Z)`$. In fact, it turns out that $`Z`$ is an example of a compact, locally 3-symmetric almost-Kähler 6-manifold in the sense of . $`\mathrm{}`$

Remarks. 1. Note that the fundamental group of $`Z`$ is equal to that of $`M`$. When $`M`$ is a compact quotient of $`H^4`$, it follows that the smooth 6-manifold underlying the twistor space $`Z`$ admits no Kähler structures at all . The analogous assertion for the twistor space of a compact quotient of $`H^2`$ is an open and intriguing problem .

2. Theorem 5 was generalized in  for twistor spaces of quaternion-Kähler manifolds of negative scalar curvature; considering compact quotients of locally-symmetric quaternion-Kähler $`4k`$-manifolds of non-compact type, one obtains compact examples of critical strictly almost-Kähler manifolds of dimension $`n=4k+2`$. $`\mathrm{}`$

### 5.3. Homogeneous examples via Kähler geometry

The examples given in this section are studied in , and rely on the following two simple lemmas. For their proofs, we refer the reader to .

###### Lemma 1.

Let $`(M,g,I)`$ be a Kähler manifold whose Ricci tensor (considered as a symmetric endomorphism of the tangent bundle via the metric $`g`$) has constant eigenvalues $`\lambda <\mu `$. Denote by $`E_\lambda `$ and $`E_\mu `$ the corresponding $`I`$-invariant eigenspaces and define an almost-complex structure $`J`$ by $`J_{|E_\lambda }=I_{|E_\lambda };J_{|E_\mu }=I_{|E_\mu }`$. Then $`(g,J)`$ is an almost-Kähler structure; it is Kähler if and only if $`(M,g,I)`$ is locally product of two Kähler–Einstein manifolds of scalar curvatures $`\lambda `$ and $`\mu `$, respectively.

###### Lemma 2.

With the notations from the previous lemma, let $`(g,I)`$ be a Kähler structure whose Ricci tensor has constant eigenvalues, and consider the 1-parameter family of metrics $`g_t=g_{|_{E_\lambda }}+tg_{|_{E_\mu }},t>0,`$ where $`g_{|_{E_\lambda }}`$ (resp. $`g_{|_{E_\mu }}`$) is the restriction of $`g`$ to the eigenspace $`E_\lambda `$ (resp. to $`E_\mu `$). Then, for any $`t>0`$, the metric $`g_t`$ is Kähler with respect to $`I`$, almost-Kähler with respect to $`J`$ and has the same Ricci tensor as the metric $`g=g_1`$.

Lemma 2 shows that one can normalize any Kähler metric with Ricci tensor having two distinct constant eigenvalues to one whose Ricci tensor has eigenvalues equal to $`1,0`$ or $`+1`$. In particular, we get

###### Corollary 1.

On a complex manifold $`(M^{2m},I)`$ there is a one-to-one correspondence between Kähler metrics $`(g,I)`$ with Ricci tensor having constant eigenvalues $`\lambda <\mu `$ with $`\lambda \mu >0`$ and Kähler-Einstein metrics $`(\stackrel{~}{g},I)`$ of scalar curvature $`2m\lambda `$ carrying an almost-Kähler structure $`J`$ which commutes with and differs from $`\pm I`$; in this correspondence $`J`$ is compatible also with $`g`$ and coincides (up to sign) with the almost-Kähler structure defined in Lemma 1; moreover, $`J`$ is integrable precisely when $`(g,I)`$ (and $`(\stackrel{~}{g},I)`$) is locally product of two Kähler-Einstein metrics.

Combining Corollary 1 with Theorem 2, it follows that a compact Kähler manifold whose Ricci tensor has two distinct constant positive eigenvalues is always locally the product of two Kähler-Einstein manifolds. In fact, using Proposition 2 for the almost-Kähler structure $`(g,J)`$, one can refine the latter result:

###### Theorem 6.

 Let $`(M,g,I)`$ be a compact Kähler manifold whose Ricci tensor has two distinct constant non-negative eigenvalues $`\lambda `$ and $`\mu `$. Then the universal cover of $`(M,g,I)`$ is the product of two simply connected Kähler-Einstein manifolds of scalar curvatures $`\lambda `$ and $`\mu `$, respectively.

The above theorem can be equally seen as an integrability result for the almost-Kähler metric $`(g,J)`$ given by Lemma 1; it is thus rather disappointing from the point of view of the search for critical strictly almost-Kähler metrics on compact manifolds. In dimension four, the situation is even more rigid, since we can further improve the above integrability result, by using the Kodaira classification of compact complex surfaces and some consequences of the Seiberg-Witten theory, recently established in .

###### Theorem 7.

 Let $`(M,g,I)`$ be a compact Kähler surface whose Ricci tensor has two distinct constant eigenvalues. Then one of the following alternatives holds:

1. $`(M,g,I)`$ is locally symmetric, i.e., locally is the product of Riemann surfaces of distinct constant Gauss curvatures;
2. if $`(M,g,I)`$ is not as described in (i), then the eigenvalues of the Ricci tensor are both negative and $`(M,J)`$ must be a minimal surface of general type with ample canonical bundle and with even and positive signature. Moreover, in this case, reversing the orientation, the manifold would admit an Einstein, strictly almost-Kähler metric.

At this time, we do not know if the alternative (ii) may really hold. As pointed out, if it does, it also provides a counter-example to the four-dimensional Goldberg conjecture.

While Lemma 1 does not seem to be a particularly useful tool of constructing compact examples of critical almost-Kähler metrics, it does provide complete ones, by considering irreducible homogeneous Kähler manifolds having Ricci tensor with two distinct eigenvalues. Indeed, according to the structure theorem for homogeneous Kähler manifolds , there are such examples of any complex dimension $`m2`$. To see this, recall that any homogeneous Kähler manifold admits a holomorphic fibering over a homogeneous bounded domain whose fiber, with the induced Kähler structure, is isomorphic to a direct product of a flat homogeneous Kähler manifold and a simply connected compact homogeneous Kähler manifold; in this structure theorem an important role is played by the Ricci tensor whose kernel corresponds to the flat factor; thus, when the Ricci tensor is non-negative, the manifold splits as the product of a flat homogeneous manifold (corresponding to the kernel of $`\mathrm{Ric}`$) and a compact homogeneous Kähler manifold (and thus having positive Ricci form). Considering non-trivial (Kähler) homogeneous fibrations over bounded homogeneous domains, we obtain examples of (deRham) irreducible homogeneous Kähler manifolds with two distinct eigenvalues of the Ricci tensor. In complex dimension 2, there is only one such manifold which is described below.

Example 3. There is an irreducible homogeneous Kähler surface $`(M,I,g)`$ whose Ricci tensor (after normalization) has eigenvalues $`(1,0)`$. Following , $`M`$ can be written as

$$M=\frac{^2Sl_2()}{SO(2)},$$

equipped with a left-invariant Kähler structure $`(g,I)`$. To make the description of the Kähler metric more explicit, one observes that the four-dimensional (real) Lie group $`G=^2Sol_2`$ acts on $`M`$ simply transitively, so that one can identify $`M`$ with $`G`$. The corresponding Lie algebra $`𝔤`$ is then generated by $`X_1,X_2,E_1,E_2`$ with

$$[X_1,X_2]=[X_1,E_2]=0;[E_1,E_2]=2E_2;[X_2,E_2]=2X_1;$$

$$[X_1,E_1]=E_1;[X_2,E_1]=X_2.$$

The left-invariant complex structure $`I`$ is defined by $`I(X_1)=X_2;I(E_1)=E_2`$, while the Kähler form is $`\mathrm{\Omega }_I=X^1X^2+E^1E^2`$. This example is studied in detail in  where it is referred to as the $`𝐅_4`$-geometry. As a matter of fact, $`M`$ does not admit any compact quotients, but it does admit quotients of finite volume. The corresponding critical strictly almost-Kähler structure $`(g,J)`$ via Lemma 1 is isomorphic to the unique proper 3-symmetric space in four dimensions (see ); it follows by  that its curvature tensor belongs to $`_2(M)`$. The uniqueness of this example, as well as its coordinate realization, will be discussed in the next section. $`\mathrm{}`$

Remark. It is erroneously stated in  and \[7, Example 3\] that the homogeneous Kähler surface $`M=(SU(2)Sol_2)/U(1)`$ appearing in the classification of Shima  is deRham irreducible. In fact, a more careful investigation of the construction in  shows that any invariant Kähler metric $`(g,I)`$ on $`M=(SU(2)Sol_2)/U(1)`$ is the Kähler product of a metric of constant Gauss curvature on $`P^1`$ with a metric of constant Gauss curvature on $`H^1`$. In particular, the almost-Kähler structure $`J`$ obtained via Lemma 1 is integrable for this example. The issue of existence of local examples of strictly almost-Kähler 4-manifolds with pointwise constant Lagrangian sectional curvature, raised in , should be therefore considered an open problem. $`\mathrm{}`$

We are now going to provide (non-compact) examples of deRham irreducible homogeneous Kähler manifolds $`(M,g,I)`$ with Ricci tensor having two negative eigenvalues $`\lambda <\mu <0`$. According to Corollary 1, these will also provide complete examples of Einstein strictly almost-Kähler manifolds. Since $`\mathrm{Ric}`$ is negative definite, $`(M,I)`$ must be a bounded homogeneous domain; it is a result of Vinberg, Gindikin and Piatetskii-Shapiro  that any such domain has a realization as a Siegel domain of type II, i.e, a domain $`D=\{(z,w)^p\times ^q:\mathrm{Im}zH(w,w)\}`$, where $``$ is an open convex cone (containing no lines) in $`^p`$ and $`H:^q\times ^q^p`$ is a Hermitian map which is $``$-positive in the sense that

$$H(w,w)\overline{}\{0\}w0.$$

In the particular case when $`q=0`$, we have $`D=^p+i`$; such domains are called Siegel domains of type I or tube domains. The following observation made in  provides the needed examples:

###### Proposition 4.

Every irreducible Hermitian symmetric space of non-compact type which admits a realization as a tube domain carries a strictly almost-Kähler structure commuting with the standard Kähler structure.

Example 4. Explicit examples of Hermitian symmetric spaces that admit strictly almost-Kähler structures are

$$M^{2m}=\frac{SO(2,m)}{SO(2)\times SO(m)},m3.$$

Indeed, it is well known that these spaces admit realizations as tube domains, cf. e.g. . $`\mathrm{}`$

Remarks. 1. By using Corollary 1, one can also find non-symmetric homogeneous Kähler-Einstein manifolds of complex dimension greater than three, which admit strictly almost-Kähler structures. In complex dimension two and three, however, any bounded homogeneous domain is symmetric . Therefore, according to Corollary 3 in section 6, no four-dimensional examples of Einstein, strictly almost-Kähler metrics arise from the above construction.

2. The reader may ask whether compact Einstein strictly almost-Kähler examples can be found as (smooth) quotients of the homogeneous examples presented. The answer is negative. Indeed, it is well-known that if a homogeneous space $`M=G/H`$ admits a compact smooth quotient $`M/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, then $`G`$ must be unimodular (see e.g. ); it then follows by  that a bounded homogeneous domain admits compact quotients if and only if it is symmetric. On the other hand, the maximal connected subgroup $`G^{}`$ in $`G`$ of isometries of the almost-Kähler structure arising from Proposition 4 is a proper closed subgroup of the full group of isometries $`G`$ of the Hermitian symmetric space $`(M,g)`$. To see this, observe that according to Lemma 2 there is at least a one-parameter family of $`G^{}`$-invariant Kähler metrics on $`M`$, while for an irreducible Hermitian symmetric space the Bergman metric $`g`$ is the unique $`G`$-invariant metric. It is known  that no co-compact lattice $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ of $`G`$ can be contained in a connected proper closed subgroup of $`G`$, so that the almost-Kähler structure $`J`$ does not descend to any compact quotient.

3. The first homogeneous examples of Einstein, strictly almost-Kähler metrics have been found by D. Alekseevsky  (see also \[16, 14.100\]) on certain solvable Lie groups of real dimension $`n=4k,k6`$. The Alekseevsky examples appear in the framework of quaternion-Kähler geometry and differ from the ones arising from homogeneous Kähler manifolds via Corollary 1. Note that the Alekseevsky spaces do not admit compact quotients either . $`\mathrm{}`$

### 5.4. Four-dimensional examples

The following construction is discussed in  and generalizes the examples described in  and .

###### Proposition 5.

Let $`(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_\mathrm{\Sigma },\omega _\mathrm{\Sigma })`$ be an oriented Riemann surface with metric $`g_\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and volume form $`\omega _\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, and let $`h=w+iv`$ be a non-constant holomorphic function on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, whose real part $`w`$ is everywhere positive. On the product of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ with $`^2=\{(z,t)\}`$ consider the symplectic form

(14)
$$\mathrm{\Omega }=\omega _\mathrm{\Sigma }dzdt$$

and the compatible Riemannian metric

(15)
$$g=g_\mathrm{\Sigma }+wdz^2+\frac{1}{w}(dt+vdz)^2;$$

Then, $`(g,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ defines a strictly almost-Kähler structure whose curvature belongs to $`_3(M)`$; in particular, $`g`$ is a critical almost-Kähler metric.

Clearly, $`\frac{}{t}`$ and $`\frac{}{z}`$ are two commuting hamiltonian Killing vector fields for the almost-Kähler structure of Proposition 5. Thus, the metric (15) is endowed with an $`^2`$-isometric action which is surface-orthogonal. This suggests that the construction is local in nature and will not lead to compact examples (see Theorem 9 below).

The almost-Kähler structure (14-15) is sufficiently explicit to make it straightforward, though tedious, to check the following assertions:

1. $`g`$ is Einstein if and only if $`(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_\mathrm{\Sigma })`$ is a flat surface, in which case $`g`$ is a Gibbons-Hawking self-dual Ricci-flat metric  with respect to a translation-invariant harmonic function $`w`$ (see );
2. the curvature of $`g`$ belongs to $`_2(M)`$ (equivalently, $`W^{\prime \prime }=0`$) if and only if $`(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_\mathrm{\Sigma })`$is hyperbolic, and, in the half-plane realization $`(H^2,\frac{dx^2+dy^2}{x^2})`$, the holomorphic function $`h`$ is given by $`h=x+iy`$; in this case (14-15) is homogeneous and isometric to the four-dimensional proper 3-symmetric space described in Example 3, see .

We also note here that an important feature of the above construction comes from the following observation: at any point where $`dw0`$, the Kähler nullity $`D=\{TMX:_XJ=0\}`$ of $`J`$ is a two dimensional subspace of $`TM`$, which is tangent to the surface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. If we define a new almost-complex structure $`I`$ by

$$J_D=I_D,J_D^{}=I_D^{},$$

where $`D^{}`$ is the $`g`$-orthogonal complement of $`D`$, then one immediately sees that $`(g,I)`$ is a Kähler structure. From this point of view, Proposition 5 provides a construction similar to the one coming from Lemma 1. In fact, at each point, the Ricci tensor of (15) has eigenvalues equal to $`(0,\frac{s}{2})`$ and these are constant precisely when $`s`$ is constant. If we introduce local coordinates on $`(\mathrm{\Sigma },g_\mathrm{\Sigma })`$, such that $`g_\sigma =e^uw(dx^2+dy^2)`$ for some function $`u(x,y)`$, then the latter condition reads

$$u_{xx}+u_{yy}=(sw)e^u$$

for a constant $`s`$. Generic (local) solutions, $`u`$, to the above equation provide non-homogeneous metrics. Hence there are non-homogeneous examples satisfying the conditions of Lemma 1.

The next proposition is proved in .

###### Proposition 6.

Let $`g_\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ be a metric on a $`2`$-manifold $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ with volume form $`\omega _\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, $`\beta `$ be a $`1`$-form on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ with $`d\beta =w\omega _\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ for an arbitrary holomorphic function $`h=w+iv`$ on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, whose real part $`w`$ is everywhere positive. Then

(16) $`g`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{w}{z}}(z^2g_\mathrm{\Sigma }+dz^2)+{\displaystyle \frac{z}{w}}\left(dt+{\displaystyle \frac{v}{z}}dz+\beta \right)^2,`$
(17) $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ $`=zw\omega _\mathrm{\Sigma }+dz\left(dt+{\displaystyle \frac{v}{z}}dz+\beta \right),`$
defines a critical almost-Kähler metric which is Kähler if and only if the function $`h`$ is constant.

Note that the almost-Kähler metric (16-17) is endowed with a hamiltonian Killing vector field $`K=\frac{}{t}`$. Furthermore, one can directly compute the curvature of (16-17). It turns out that it does not belong to $`_3(M)`$, showing that the solutions are different from the ones given by Proposition 5. We thus can get new examples of self-dual Ricci-flat strictly almost-Kähler $`4`$-manifolds. Indeed, let $`(g,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ be given by (16-17) and suppose that $`g_{P^1}`$ is the standard metric on an open subset $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ of $`P^1`$; let $`h=w+iv`$ be a non-constant holomorphic function on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ with positive real part. If we write $`z=r`$, we see that the metric

$$g=\frac{w}{r}(dr^2+r^2g_{P^1})+\frac{r}{w}(dt+\alpha )^2$$

is given by applying the Gibbons-Hawking Ansatz  applied with respect to the harmonic function $`w/r`$. This class of Gibbons-Hawking metrics has been studied in  and . The reader is referred to these references for more information. The observation that these metrics are almost-Kähler was made in .

## 6. Local classification results in dimension 4 and further integrability results.

We start this section with the following result recently proven in .

###### Theorem 8.

For any connected strictly almost-Kähler 4-manifold $`(M,g,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ whose curvature belongs to $`_3(M)`$ there exists an open dense subset $`U`$ with the following property: in a neighborhood of any point of $`U`$, $`(g,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ is homothetic to an almost-Kähler structure given by Proposition 5.

This theorem generalizes some previous results:

###### Corollary 2.

 There are no Einstein anti-self-dual strictly almost-Kähler 4-manifolds.

Since any anti-self-dual Kähler surface is necessarily scalar-flat (see e.g. ), it also follows

###### Corollary 3.

 Let $`(M,g)`$ be the four dimensional real hyperbolic space, or the two dimensional complex hyperbolic space but endowed with the non-standard orientation. Then $`(M,g)`$ does not admit even a locally defined compatible almost Kähler structure.

Remarks. 1. To the best of our knowledge, it is still an open problem whether the complex hyperbolic space $`H^2`$ does admit a (locally defined) strictly almost-Kähler structure $`J`$ which is compatible with the canonical metric and with the standard orientation. If it does, this would be the first example of a strictly almost-Kähler Einstein, self-dual metric with negative scalar curvature, and would constitute a major step in the development of the local theory. In the same vein, it is unknown if $`H^1\times H^1`$ (locally) admits strictly almost-Kähler structures compatible with the product Einstein metric. By contrast, for the other symmetric four-dimensional spaces the answer is known: applying the curvature criterion for non-existence of strictly almost-Kähler structures, established in section 3.3, one concludes that a strictly almost-Kähler structure can possibly exist only on the space $`\times H^3`$. Conversely, Oguro and Sekigawa showed  that this symmetric space does admit a strictly almost-Kähler structure.

2. Any real hyperbolic space $`(H^{2m},\mathrm{can}),m2`$ does not admit even locally defined almost-Kähler structures. This result was proved for $`m>3`$ in . The 6-dimensional version is much more subtle and was proved only recently in . $`\mathrm{}`$

As another immediate consequence from Theorem 8 and the results in , we derive

###### Corollary 4.

 Let $`(M,g,J,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ be a complete, simply connected strictly almost-Kähler 4-manifold whose curvature tensor belongs to $`_2(M)`$. Then $`(M,g,J,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ is isometric to the proper 3-symmetric space described in Example 3.

Since the homogeneous space of Example 3 does not admit any compact quotient (see ), we also get the following integrability result originally proven in .

###### Corollary 5.

Any compact almost-Kähler 4-manifold whose curvature tensor belongs to $`_2(M)`$ is Kähler .

We can ask more generally whether there are compact strictly almost-Kähler 4-manifolds whose curvature belongs to $`_3(M)`$. Using the local structure established in Theorem 8 and some further global arguments, it was also shown in  that the answer is negative.

###### Theorem 9.

 Any compact almost-Kähler 4-manifold whose curvature tensor belongs to $`_3(M)`$ is Kähler .

The above integrability result also implies

###### Corollary 6.

There are no critical, strictly almost-Kähler structures compatible with a compact locally-homogeneous Riemannian 4-manifold.

Proof. Suppose for contradiction that $`(M,g)`$ is a compact locally homogeneous 4-manifold which admits a compatible strictly almost-Kähler structure $`J`$ such that the Ricci tensor $`\mathrm{Ric}`$ is $`J`$-invariant.

If $`g`$ is Einstein, then by a well known result of Jensen  $`(M,g)`$ must be a compact locally symmetric 4-manifold (see also \[30, Prop.9\] for a different proof). Using a case by case verification, it is shown in  that $`(M,g)`$ does not admit strictly almost-Kähler structures. We give an alternative proof of this fact as follows. By Theorem 2, we can assume that $`(M,g)`$ is a compact quotient of a symmetric Einstein 4-manifold of non-compact type; the latter are $`H^4`$, $`H^2`$ and $`H^1\times H^1`$. By Corollary 3, we can further assume that $`(M,g)`$ is locally isometric to $`H^2`$ or $`H^1\times H^1`$, and that $`J`$ agrees with the standard orientation on these spaces. Then, being locally Hermitian symmetric, $`(M,g)`$ admits both a Kähler structure and a strictly almost-Kähler structure compatible with the same orientation. This is impossible according to \[8, Th.1\].

Consider now the case when $`(M,g)`$ is locally homogeneous but not Einstein. Since $`\mathrm{Ric}`$ is $`J`$-invariant, it has two distinct (constant) eigenvalues $`\lambda `$ and $`\mu `$, each one of multiplicity $`2`$, such that the corresponding eigenspaces are invariant under the action of $`J`$; it follows that $`J`$ is uniquely determined (up to sign) on the oriented 4-manifold $`(M,g)`$, by acting as a rotation of angle $`+\frac{\pi }{2}`$ on each eigenspace of $`\mathrm{Ric}`$. This shows that $`J`$ must be invariant under the transitive group action, i.e., that $`(g,J)`$ is a locally homogeneous almost-Kähler 4-manifold. In particular, the 2-form $`(\rho ^{})^{\prime \prime }`$ defined in section 3.2 is invariant, and therefore of constant length. It is easily seen that $`(\rho ^{})^{\prime \prime }=0`$ if and only if the curvature of $`(g,J)`$ belongs to $`_3(M)`$ (see e.g. \[6, Lemma 1\]). Since we assumed $`J`$ is non-integrable, by Theorem 9 we conclude that $`(\rho ^{})^{\prime \prime }`$ is a nowhere vanishing smooth section of the bundle $`[[\mathrm{\Lambda }^{0,2}M]]`$. In four dimensions, the induced action of $`J`$ on $`[[\mathrm{\Lambda }^{0,2}M]]`$ gives an isomorphism between this bundle and the canonical bundle of $`(g,J)`$. This shows that $`c_1^{}(J)=0`$. Now, by Theorem 4, $`J`$ must be integrable, a contradiction. $`\mathrm{}`$

We end this section with the following characterization of the metrics given by (16-17).

###### Theorem 10.

 Let $`(M,g,J,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ be an almost-Kähler $`4`$-manifold with $`J`$-invariant Ricci tensor and a non-vanishing hamiltonian Killing vector field $`K`$. Suppose that the pair $`(\overline{g}=\mu ^2g,I)`$ is Kähler, where $`\mu `$ is a momentum map for a nonzero multiple of $`K`$, and $`I`$ is equal to $`J`$ on $`\mathrm{span}(K,JK)`$, but to $`J`$ on the orthogonal complement of $`\mathrm{span}(K,JK)`$. Then either $`J`$ is integrable, or $`(g,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ is locally given by Proposition 6.

## 7. Curvature conditions with respect to the Hermitian connection

For an almost-Kähler manifold $`(M^{2m},g,J,\mathrm{\Omega })`$, besides the Levi-Civita connection $``$ of $`g`$, one can also consider the so called Hermitian or first canonical connection (see e.g. ), defined by :

$$\stackrel{~}{}_XY=_XY\frac{1}{2}J(_XJ)(Y).$$

This is the unique connection satisfying the following three conditions:

$$\stackrel{~}{}g=0,\stackrel{~}{}J=0,(T^\stackrel{~}{})^{1,1}=0,$$

where $`(T^\stackrel{~}{})^{1,1}`$ denotes the $`J`$-invariant part of the torsion $`T^\stackrel{~}{}`$ of $`\stackrel{~}{}`$, viewed as a real 2-form with values in $`TM`$. For any connection that has the first two of the above properties, the $`J`$-anti-invariant part of its torsion is canonically identified with the Nijenhuis tensor $`N`$ of the almost-complex structure; it follows that among connections making both $`g`$ and $`J`$ parallel, the first canonical connection has torsion with minimal possible norm, cf. . By Chern-Weil theory, the Chern classes of the manifold are directly related to the curvature of the connection $`\stackrel{~}{}`$. If we denote by $`\stackrel{~}{R}`$ the curvature tensor of $`\stackrel{~}{}`$, then

$$\stackrel{~}{\rho }(X,Y)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{m}{}}(\stackrel{~}{R}_{X,Y}e_i,Je_i)$$

is a closed 2-form which is a deRham representative of $`2\pi c_1(M,J)`$ in $`H^2(M,)`$. Moreover, $`\stackrel{~}{\rho }`$ is related to the Ricci forms of $``$ introduced at the end of section 3.2 by

$$\stackrel{~}{\rho }=\rho ^{}\frac{1}{2}\varphi =\rho +\frac{1}{2}(^{}\mathrm{\Omega }\varphi ),$$

where for the second equality we used (10) and $`\varphi `$ is the $`(1,1)`$-form given by (12). The Hermitian scalar curvature is defined to be $`\stackrel{~}{s}=2(\stackrel{~}{R}(\mathrm{\Omega }),\mathrm{\Omega })`$; by (11), $`\stackrel{~}{s}`$ is related to the scalar and $``$-scalar curvatures by

$$\stackrel{~}{s}=\frac{1}{2}(s^{}+s)=s+\frac{1}{2}|\mathrm{\Omega }|^2.$$

Further, we have

$$_M\stackrel{~}{s}𝑑v=\frac{4\pi }{(m1)!}(c_1[\mathrm{\Omega }]^{(m1)})(M)=cvol(M),$$

where $`c`$ is the constant $`\frac{4\pi }{(m1)!}(c_1[\mathrm{\Omega }]^{(m1)})(M)/vol(M)`$. Thus, almost-Kähler metrics which satisfy the conditions

(18)
$$\stackrel{~}{\rho }=\frac{\stackrel{~}{s}}{2m}\mathrm{\Omega },\stackrel{~}{s}=c$$

are natural candidates for generalizing Kähler-Einstein metrics. They could exist only on compact symplectic manifolds for which the first Chern class $`c_1`$ is a multiple of the cohomology class of the symplectic form $`[\mathrm{\Omega }]`$.

In the compact case, almost-Kähler metrics satisfying (18) can be equivalently characterized by the following three conditions:

(19)
$$(\mathrm{a})\stackrel{~}{s}=c,(\mathrm{b})\stackrel{~}{\rho }\text{ is of type}(1,1),(\mathrm{c})c_1=\frac{c}{4m\pi }[\mathrm{\Omega }].$$

It is natural to drop the cohomological condition (c) and look for compact almost-Kähler manifolds satisfying just (a) and/or (b). For instance, in dimension four, almost-Kähler metrics which saturate the new curvature estimates of LeBrun  must satisfy (a) and (b).

The study of almost-Kähler metrics of constant Hermitian scalar curvature is motivated by some results and questions of Donaldson . He uses a moment map approach to show that problems posed by Calabi about finding canonical Kähler metrics on complex manifolds have natural extensions in the symplectic context.

The first observation is that the Fréchet space $`\mathrm{𝐀𝐊}(M,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$-compatible metrics admits a formal Kähler structure which is preserved by the action of the connected component of the identity, $`Symp_0(M,\mathrm{\Omega })`$, of the symplectomorphism group of $`(M,\mathrm{\Omega })`$. Assuming $`H^1(M,)=0`$, the Lie algebra of this group is identified with the space of smooth functions on $`M`$ of zero integral, $`C_0^{\mathrm{}}(M)`$, endowed with the Poisson bracket with respect to $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. Then, it is shown in  that

$$\mu :\mathrm{𝐀𝐊}(M,\mathrm{\Omega })C_0^{\mathrm{}}(M),\mu (g)=\stackrel{~}{s}_gc,$$

is a moment map for the action of $`Symp_0(M,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ on $`\mathrm{𝐀𝐊}(M,\mathrm{\Omega })`$. The elements in the zero-set $`\mu ^1(0)`$ of the moment map are $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$-compatible almost-Kähler metrics with constant Hermitian scalar curvature. Having in mind the identification of quotients which holds in the finite dimensional theory of moment maps (see e.g. ), but which is largely conjectural for infinite dimensional problems, one can speculate that each “stable” leaf of the action on $`\mathrm{𝐀𝐊}(M,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ induced by the complexified Lie algebra of $`Symp_0(M,\mathrm{\Omega })`$, contains precisely one $`Symp_0(M,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ orbit of almost-Kähler metrics of constant Hermitian scalar curvature. There is supporting evidence for the validity of this scenario. Restricted to the space of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$-compatible, integrable almost-Kähler structures and after an application of Moser’s lemma, Donaldson’s approach transforms exactly into the classical set up of Calabi regarding existence of Kähler metrics of constant scalar curvature (in particular, Kähler-Einstein metrics) on compact complex manifolds. The leaves of the complexified action correspond in this case to deformations of the Kähler form in a fixed cohomology class by Kähler potentials. A number of results in Kähler geometry partially confirm the quotient identification in the integrable case.

Of course, the ultimate goal would be to prove a general existence result in the symplectic context, but for the beginning it would be interesting to construct some particular compact examples of strictly almost-Kähler manifolds satisfying some of the conditions in (19). At this point, our knowledge of such examples is limited. Of course, all locally homogeneous almost-Kähler structures have constant Hermitian scalar curvature. Some satisfy the other conditions of (19). For instance, it is not difficult to check that the Kodaira-Thurston manifold presented in Example 1 satisfies $`\stackrel{~}{\rho }=0`$. Using the curvature computation of , the same can be seen to be true for the Davidov-Mus̆karov twistorial examples presented in section 5.1, cf. .

Finally, it is worth mentioning another research problem suggested by Donaldson’s approach — the study of the critical points of the squared norm of the moment map, that is, the $`L^2`$-norm of the Hermitian scalar curvature, seen as a functional on the space $`\mathrm{𝐀𝐊}(M,\mathrm{\Omega })`$. It follows from the moment map set-up that the critical points of this functional are precisely the almost-Kähler metrics for which the vector field dual to $`Jd\stackrel{~}{s}`$ is Killing with respect to $`g`$. Thus, we get a natural extension of the Calabi extremal Kähler metrics  to the almost-Kähler case. It is interesting to see what parts of the theory of extremal Kähler metrics extend to the symplectic context. For example, similarly to the Kähler case , one immediately finds an obvious necessary condition for a compact symplectic manifold $`(M,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ to admit a compatible extremal almost-Kähler metric $`g`$ of non-constant Hermitian scalar curvature: since the connected component of the identity of the isometry group of $`g`$ is a compact subgroup of $`Symp_0(M,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ , it follows that $`Symp_0(M,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ contains an $`S^1`$ which acts with fixed points. In dimension four, combining this observation with the results in  and , one sees that any compact symplectic 4-manifold $`(M,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ possibly admitting an extremal almost-Kähler metric of non-constant Hermitian scalar curvature must be symplectomorphic to a rational or ruled Kähler surface endowed with an $`S^1`$-isometric (and therefore holomorphic) action. These are complex surfaces possibly supporting extremal Kähler metrics as well (see e.g. ).

Acknowledgement. We owe thanks to J. Armstrong, D. Calderbank, P. Gauduchon, D. Kotschick and A. Moroianu for collaboration on a number of results mentioned in this survey, and to D. Alekseevsky whose comments were at the origin of the examples presented in section 5.3. The first author would also like to take this opportunity to thank the organizers for a wonderful conference.


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# Very high precision bound state spectroscopy near a 85Rb Feshbach resonance

## Abstract

We precisely measured the binding energy ($`ϵ_{\mathrm{bind}}`$) of a molecular state near the Feshbach resonance in a 85Rb Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). Rapid magnetic field pulses induced coherent atom-molecule oscillations in the BEC. We measured the oscillation frequency as a function of B-field and fit the data to a coupled-channels model. Our analysis constrained the Feshbach resonance position \[155.041(18) G\], width \[10.71(2) G\], and background scattering length \[-443(3) a0\] and yielded new values for $`v_{DS}`$, $`v_{DT}`$, and $`C_6`$. These results improved our estimate for the stability condition of an attractive BEC. We also found evidence for a mean-field shift to $`ϵ_{\mathrm{bind}}`$.

The phenomenon of a Feshbach resonance in ultracold collisions of alkali atoms has received much theoretical and experimental interest in recent years and has sparked interest in the subject of resonant Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC). Feshbach resonances feshbach1958a ; Tiesinga1992a  have been used to control elastic and inelastic collisions in ultracold gases Courteille1998a ; Roberts1998a ; Vuletic1999a ; Loftus2002a  and for tuning the self-interaction in BEC Inouye1998a ; Cornish2000a ; Donley2001a ; Khaykovich2002a ; Strecker2002a  by changing the magnitude of an external magnetic field. The magnetic field controls the self-interaction in the BEC by affecting the s-wave scattering length, $`a`$. Close to resonance, the scattering length varies with B-field according to

$$a=a_{\mathrm{bg}}\left(1\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{BB_{\mathrm{peak}}}\right),$$
(1)
where Bpeak is the resonance position and is defined to be the magnetic field where the magnitude of $`a`$ becomes infinite, $`a_{\mathrm{bg}}`$ is the background scattering length, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }=B_{\mathrm{zero}}B_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ is the resonance width where $`B_{\mathrm{zero}}`$ is the B-field where the scattering length crosses zero. Measurements of Feshbach resonance positions and widths have been used in a variety of alkali atoms to improve the determination of the interatomic potentials. These potentials have then been used to precisely calculate a multitude of important properties for trapped atomic gases Roberts1998a ; Loftus2002a ; vanAbeelen1999b ; Leo2000a ; Roberts2001b ; vanKempen2002a .

Recently, we applied rapid magnetic field variations near a Feshbach resonance to create an atom-molecule superposition state in a 85Rb BEC Donley2002a , which has allowed us to precisely determine the Feshbach resonance position and width. Our novel technique for studying the Feshbach resonance relies on the presence of atom-molecule coherence Kokkelmans2002a ; Kohler2002b ; Mackie2002b . By inducing periodic oscillations in the number of condensate atoms, we obtain a direct, high precision measurement of the molecular bound state energy. Exploiting the resonance, we tune the molecular state very close to threshold — to our knowledge, this is the most weakly bound state ever observed. The present method for studying the Feshbach resonance through atom-molecule oscillations offers all of the many inherent advantages of a frequency measurement, including the possibility of high measurement precision, a lack of sensitivity to errors in the absolute atom number calibration, and a simple interpretation of the oscillation frequency in terms of the relative energy difference between the atomic and molecular states. When these advantages are combined with an improved method for magnetic field calibration Claussen2002a , the present technique for probing the Feshbach resonance is much more precise than previous experiments that examined such Feshbach resonance observables as variable rethermalization rates in a trapped cloud of atoms Roberts1998a ; Roberts2001b , enhancements of photoassociation rates Courteille1998a  and inelastic loss rates near the resonance Chin2000a , and variations of the mean-field expansion energy of a BEC Inouye1998a .

To complete our precise characterization of the Feshbach resonance, we also made an improved measurement of Bzero, the magnetic field where the scattering length vanishes. This experiment is very similar to our previous work Roberts2001a ; Roberts2001b , where we determined the $`a`$=0 field by measuring the critical number (Ncrit) for collapse of a BEC, and then we extrapolated to the magnetic field where Ncrit would be infinite. We have improved the measurement precision by about a factor of 4 by improving our magnetic field calibration and using a larger number of condensate atoms to measure the collapse. We find Bzero=165.750(13) G.

The procedure used to generate atom-molecule oscillations in 85Rb Bose-Einstein condensates has been described in previous work Donley2002a , so we merely outline the method here. After creating condensates with initial number of atoms N$`{}_{0}{}^{}`$16000 at a magnetic field B$``$162 G, we apply two short B-field pulses ($``$40 $`\mu `$s duration) that approach and then recede from the Feshbach resonance at B$`{}_{\mathrm{peak}}{}^{}`$155 G. The intermediate value of magnetic field between the pulses, Bevolve, and the time spacing between pulses, tevolve, are variable quantities. The double pulse sequence is followed by a slow change in the B-field to expand the BEC Donley2001a , then the trap is switched off (B$``$0) and destructive absorption imaging is used to count the number of atoms remaining in the condensate.

As in Ref. Donley2002a , periodic oscillations in the BEC number were observed as a function of tevolve (see Fig. 1). We fit the BEC number oscillation to a damped harmonic oscillator function with an additional linear loss term:

$$N(t)=N_{avg}\alpha t+A\mathrm{exp}(\beta t)\mathrm{sin}(\omega _et+\varphi ),$$
(2)
where $`N_{avg}`$ is the average number, A is the oscillation amplitude, $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ are the number loss and damping rates, respectively, and $`\omega _e=2\pi \sqrt{\nu _0^2[\beta /(2\pi )]^2}`$. The quantity of interest here is $`\nu _0`$, the natural oscillator frequency corresponding to the molecular binding energy, $`\nu _0`$=$`ϵ_{\mathrm{bind}}/h`$. We measured the oscillation frequency for values of Bevolve from 156.1 G to 161.8 G. Over this range, the frequency varies by over 2 orders of magnitude (10-1000 kHz), but the linear loss rate changes very little. The damping rate shows a significant B-field dependence, increasing from $`\beta `$ 2$`\pi `$ x 0.8 kHz near 156 G to $`\beta `$ 2$`\pi `$ x 22 kHz near 162 G. We find no significant density dependence to the damping at Bevolve=158.60(5) G; increasing the total atom density by a factor of 4.3(5) leads to a damping rate increase of only a factor of 1.3(3). Atom loss from the BEC is well described by a linear rate of -2 to -7 atoms/$`\mu `$s over the field range of interest. The rate is consistent with previous measurements of number loss due to a single B-field pulse toward the Feshbach resonance Claussen2002a .

To characterize the Feshbach resonance, it is necessary to know both the oscillation frequency and Bevolve. We precisely measured Bevolve by transferring atoms to an untrapped spin state by driving $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$m=+1 spin flip transitions with an applied pulse of rf radiation (pulse length=5$``$25 $`\mu `$s). The spin flip frequency was determined from the rf lineshape for the loss of atoms from the magnetic trap. After measuring the rf transition frequency, we inverted the Breit-Rabi equation to obtain the corresponding B-field. To ensure that the magnetic field was sufficiently constant during tevolve, we mapped out $`B(t)`$ using rf pulses with lengths short compared to tevolve. Due to interference of the rf radiation with the magnetic field control circuitry, there was a small systematic shift of the field as a function of the rf power used. The uncertainty for each magnetic field determination was the quadrature sum of the uncertainty due to the lineshape measurements ($``$15 mG) and the uncertainty in the extrapolation to zero rf power ($``$20 mG). Typically, the total uncertainty in the average B-field was $``$25 mG.

The measured oscillation frequencies versus magnetic field are plotted in Fig. 2. We use these data and the zero-crossing field $`B_{\mathrm{zero}}`$ to completely characterize the scattering length and binding energy as a function of magnetic field near the Feshbach resonance. As a starting point we use the coupled-channels analysis of van Kempen et al. vanKempen2002a , where several high-precision data for 85Rb and 87Rb were combined to perform an inter-isotope determination of the rubidium interactions with unprecedented accuracy. The predictive power of this analysis can be seen from Ref. Donley2002a , where the initial data on the atom-molecule coherence were already in good agreement with the predicted binding energy of the underlying Feshbach state. Another example of the accuracy of the analysis in Ref. vanKempen2002a  is its agreement with more than 40 Feshbach resonances recently discovered in 87Rb marte2002a .

Van Kempen et al. used the best known values Roberts2001b  for the resonant magnetic field $`B_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ and zero crossing $`B_{\mathrm{zero}}`$. In this Letter, we ignore the relatively imprecise value of Bpeak from Ref. Roberts2001b , and instead use the measured dependence of binding energy on magnetic field along with the new Bzero measurement given above to determine the interaction parameters. We observe that the fitting procedure is mainly sensitive to only three parameters: the van der Waals dispersion coefficient, $`C_6`$, and the non-integral vibrational quantum numbers at dissociation, $`v_{DS}`$ and $`v_{DT}`$, which determine the position of the last bound state in the singlet and triplet potentials, respectively. Varying the additional parameters $`C_8`$, $`C_{10}`$, $`\varphi _T^E`$ (the first-order energy-dependence of the phase of the oscillating triplet radial wave function), and $`J`$, the strength of the exchange interaction, does not improve the fitting because these changes can be absorbed in small shifts of $`v_{DS}`$, $`v_{DT}`$, and $`C_6`$. Therefore, we take the mean values for these four parameters explain-phi  from the most recent determination in Ref. marte2002a .

The best fit to Bzero and the seven highest frequency data points yields a reduced $`\chi ^2`$=0.30 for 5 degrees of freedom. This value of $`\chi ^2`$ is improbably low due to the fact that the uncertainty in the data is dominated by the systematic uncertainty in magnetic field related to the magnitude of the rf power shift. Figure 2 shows the theoretical fit to the binding energy data as a function of magnetic field. From the fit, we find substantially improved values for the Feshbach resonance position $`B_{\mathrm{peak}}`$=155.041(18) G, width $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$=10.71(2) G, and background scattering length $`a_{\mathrm{bg}}`$=-443(3) a0. These results may be compared to previously obtained results $`B_{\mathrm{peak}}`$=154.9(4) G and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$=11.0(4) G Roberts2001b , and $`a_{\mathrm{bg}}`$=-450(3) a0 explain-abg . Our best interaction parameter values are $`C_6`$=4707(2) a.u., $`v_{DS}`$=$`0.00918(17)`$, and $`v_{DT}`$=$`0.94659(29)`$. Here the error bars do not include systematic errors due to the uncertainties in other interaction parameters that are not constrained by our data. To compare our values with those of Ref. vanKempen2002a , we determined the sensitivity of our three interaction parameters to systematic shifts in the other parameters, as shown in Table I. Using the fractional uncertainties in $`C_8`$, $`C_{10}`$, $`\varphi _T^E`$, and $`J`$ from Ref. vanKempen2002a , we find $`C_6`$=4707(13) a.u., $`v_{DS}`$=$`0.0092(4)`$, and $`v_{DT}`$=$`0.9466(5)`$. All of these values agree with those given in Ref. vanKempen2002a : $`C_6`$=4703(9) a.u., $`v_{DS}`$=$`0.009(1)`$, and $`v_{DT}`$=$`0.9471(2)`$. Our value for $`v_{DS}`$ is more precise than that of Ref. vanKempen2002a , while $`v_{DT}`$ and $`C_6`$ are slightly less precise. If future experiments allow improvements to the other interaction parameters, then our results will also become more precise since the systematic errors are comparable to or larger than our statistical errors from the fit.

To understand the strong parameter constraints that we obtain with our bound state spectroscopy, it is important to consider the nonlinear dependence of the binding energy on magnetic field. The magnetic field dependence of $`ϵ_{\mathrm{bind}}`$ as it approaches the collision threshold depends sensitively on the exact shape of the long range interatomic potentials, which are mainly characterized by the van der Waals coefficient, $`C_6`$. At magnetic fields far from resonance, the bound state wave function is confined to short internuclear distance and the binding energy varies linearly with magnetic field. The linear dependence on B-field gives relatively little information about $`C_6`$. As the B-field approaches resonance, the detuning decreases until the bound state lies just below threshold. Now the bound state wave function penetrates much deeper into the classically forbidden region, which causes $`ϵ_{\mathrm{bind}}`$ to curve toward threshold as a function of magnetic field. Because the energetically forbidden region stretches out as $`C_6/r^6`$, the observed curvature depends sensitively on the $`C_6`$ coefficient. One can show kokkelmans2002tb  that an analytical Feshbach model that includes the correct potential range and background scattering processes Kokkelmans2002b  can reproduce the binding energy curve over the full range of magnetic field.

The coupled-channels theory used in this work applies to two-body scattering; therefore, this theory cannot account for many-body effects in the atom-molecule BEC system, such as a mean-field shift to the observed oscillation frequency Kokkelmans2002a ; Duine2002a . Any such mean-field shift must be fractionally largest near the Feshbach resonance, where the binding energy approaches zero while the atom-atom scattering length increases to infinity. We searched for a mean-field shift to the oscillation frequency when Bevolve was decreased to $``$156 G. As shown in Fig. 2, the lowest magnetic field data display a clear frequency shift with respect to the coupled-channels theory prediction. As Bevolve approaches resonance, the observed shift increases to 1.7 kHz, which significantly exceeds a simple estimate for the average atom-atom mean-field shift in the BEC: $`4\pi \mathrm{}^2na/m0.5`$ kHz at Bevolve=156.1 G. We are presently investigating new experimental techniques to further study the mean-field shifts, including their density dependence.

Since the lowest frequency data show evidence for a mean-field shift, we exclude these points from the (two-body) theory fit. We determine the cutoff magnetic field for the excluded region by the following procedure. We fit the data set that includes all frequency measurements satisfying $`\nu _09`$ kHz. Eliminating the lowest frequency point from the set causes the reduced $`\chi ^2`$ to decrease from 0.3 to 0.2, and there is no significant change in parameter values. In contrast, adding the next lower frequency point increases the reduced $`\chi ^2`$ to 1.9, causing a systematic shift in the parameter values. The observed behavior seems sensible since we expect mean-field shifts to increase rapidly as one moves toward resonance (see Fig. 2).

As a result of the improved determination of the 85Rb Feshbach resonance parameters, we find that our new value for the off-resonant or background scattering length, $`a_{\mathrm{bg}}`$=-443(3) a0, is inconsistent with the value given in Ref. Roberts2001b , where $`a_{\mathrm{bg}}`$=-380(21) a0. The most plausible explanation we can find for disagreement is that the theoretical expression used to relate measured rethermalization rate to cross section is insufficient for the requisite level of accuracy. However, the new value for $`a_{\mathrm{bg}}`$ allows us to revise our previous estimate for the stability condition of a BEC with negative scattering length Roberts2001a . We use Eq. (1) to obtain the linear slope of scattering length versus B-field near B=Bzero. We then find the stability coefficient for BEC collapse, $`k_{\mathrm{collapse}}`$, by combining the value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }a/\mathrm{\Delta }B`$=-39.87(22) a0/G with the measured slope of 1/Ncrit versus magnetic field Roberts2001a  of 0.00126(3) (atoms G)-1. Thus, we obtain the revised value $`k_{\mathrm{collapse}}`$=0.547(58), where the error is dominated by a 10% systematic uncertainty in the determination of Ncrit. The present determination agrees with the theoretical value of 0.55 Gammal2001a .

In conclusion, we present a unique method for exploring a 85Rb Feshbach resonance. The observed atom-molecule coherence allows us to study the highly nonlinear dependence of the molecular binding energy on magnetic field. We find good agreement with an analysis of van Kempen et al. vanKempen2002a  and improved precision for the characterization of the Feshbach resonance. In addition, we observe mean-field shifts to the binding energy, offering the possibility for future studies of many-body effects in this exciting system.

This research was supported by ONR and NSF. S. T. Thompson acknowledges the support of the ARO-MURI Fellowship Program.

Present address: Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, ENS, 24 rue Lhomond, 75005 Paris, France.