Bi-paracontact structures and Legendre foliations

We study almost bi-paracontact structures on contact manifolds. We prove that if an almost bi-paracontact structure is defined on a contact manifold $(M,\eta)$, then under some natural assumptions of integrability, $M$ carries two transverse bi-Legendrian structures. Conversely, if two transverse bi-Legendrian structures are defined on a contact manifold, then $M$ admits an almost bi-paracontact structure. We define a canonical connection on an almost bi-paracontact manifold and we study its curvature properties, which resemble those of the Obata connection of an anti-hypercomplex (or complex-product) manifold. Further, we prove that any contact metric manifold whose Reeb vector field belongs to the $(\kappa,\mu)$-nullity distribution canonically carries an almost bi-paracontact structure and we apply the previous results to the theory of contact metric $(\kappa,\mu)$-spaces.Comment: To appear on: Kodai Mathematical Journa

Contact metric (κ,μ)(\kappa,\mu)-spaces as bi-Legendrian manifolds

We regard a contact metric manifold whose Reeb vector field belongs to the $(\kappa,\mu)$-nullity distribution as a bi-Legendrian manifold and we study its canonical bi-Legendrian structure. Then we characterize contact metric $(\kappa,\mu)$-spaces in terms of a canonical connection which can be naturally defined on them.Comment: To appear on Bull. Austral. Math. So

3-Sasakian manifolds, 3-cosymplectic manifolds and Darboux theorem

We present a compared analysis of some properties of 3-Sasakian and 3-cosymplectic manifolds. We construct a canonical connection on an almost 3-contact metric manifold which generalises the Tanaka-Webster connection of a contact metric manifold and we use this connection to show that a 3-Sasakian manifold does not admit any Darboux-like coordinate system. Moreover, we prove that any 3-cosymplectic manifold is Ricci-flat and admits a Darboux coordinate system if and only it is flat.Comment: 14 pages, LaTeX; some minor misprints correcte

Nearly Sasakian geometry and SU(2)SU(2)-structures

We carry on a systematic study of nearly Sasakian manifolds. We prove that any nearly Sasakian manifold admits two types of integrable distributions with totally geodesic leaves which are, respectively, Sasakian or $5$-dimensional nearly Sasakian manifolds. As a consequence, any nearly Sasakian manifold is a contact manifold. Focusing on the $5$-dimensional case, we prove that there exists a one-to-one correspondence between nearly Sasakian structures and a special class of nearly hypo $SU(2)$-structures. By deforming such a $SU(2)$-structure one obtains in fact a Sasaki-Einstein structure. Further we prove that both nearly Sasakian and Sasaki-Einstein $5$-manifolds are endowed with supplementary nearly cosymplectic structures. We show that there is a one-to-one correspondence between nearly cosymplectic structures and a special class of hypo $SU(2)$-structures which is again strictly related to Sasaki-Einstein structures. Furthermore, we study the orientable hypersurfaces of a nearly K\"{a}hler 6-manifold and, in the last part of the paper, we define canonical connections for nearly Sasakian manifolds, which play a role similar to the Gray connection in the context of nearly K\"{a}hler geometry. In dimension $5$ we determine a connection which parallelizes all the nearly Sasakian $SU(2)$-structure as well as the torsion tensor field. An analogous result holds also for Sasaki-Einstein structures.Comment: We have shortened the introduction and corrected some misprint

Curvature properties of 3-quasi-Sasakian manifolds

We find some curvature properties of 3-quasi-Sasakian manifolds which are similar to some well-known identities holding in the Sasakian case. As an application, we prove that any 3-quasi-Sasakian manifold of constant horizontal sectional curvature is necessarily either 3-\alpha-Sasakian or 3-cosymplectic.Comment: 7 pages, to appear in Int. J. Geom. Methods Mod. Phys. (IJGMMP

Some remarks on cosymplectic 3-structures

In this note we briefly review some recent results of the authors on the topological and geometrical properties of 3-cosymplectic manifolds.Comment: 6 page

Hard Lefschetz Theorem for Sasakian manifolds

We prove that on a compact Sasakian manifold $(M, \eta, g)$ of dimension $2n+1$, for any $0 \le p \le n$ the wedge product with $\eta \wedge (d\eta)^p$ defines an isomorphism between the spaces of harmonic forms $\Omega^{n-p}_\Delta (M)$ and $\Omega^{n+p+1}_\Delta (M)$. Therefore it induces an isomorphism between the de Rham cohomology spaces $H^{n-p}(M)$ and $H^{n+p+1}(M)$. Such isomorphism is proven to be independent of the choice of a compatible Sasakian metric on a given contact manifold. As a consequence, an obstruction for a contact manifold to admit Sasakian structures is found.Comment: 19 pages, 1 figure, accepted for publication in the Journal of Differential Geometr

Cosymplectic p-spheres

We introduce cosymplectic circles and cosymplectic spheres, which are the analogues in the cosymplectic setting of contact circles and contact spheres. We provide a complete classification of compact 3-manifolds that admit a cosymplectic circle. The properties of tautness and roundness for a cosymplectic $p$-sphere are studied. To any taut cosymplectic circle on a three-dimensional manifold $M$ we are able to canonically associate a complex structure and a conformal symplectic couple on $M \times \mathbb{R}$. We prove that a cosymplectic circle in dimension three is round if and only if it is taut. On the other hand, we provide examples in higher dimensions of cosymplectic circles which are taut but not round and examples of cosymplectic circles which are round but not taut.Comment: 17 pages, accepted for publication in Journal of Geometry and Physic