Related papers: Cartan connections and path structures with large …
We classify the normal CR structures on $S^3$ and their automorphism groups. Together with [3], this closes the classification of normal CR structures on contact 3-manifolds. We give a criterion to compare 2 normal CR structures, and we…
In this paper we show that if a path structure has non-vanishing curvature at a point then it has a canonical reduction to a Z/2Z-structure at a neighbourhood of that point (in many cases it has a canonical parallelism). A simple…
We show that compact complex manifolds of algebraic dimension zero bearing a holomorphic Cartan geometry of algebraic type have infinite fundamental group. This generalizes the main Theorem in [DM] where the same result was proved for the…
The main result of this paper is that the identity component of the automorphism group of a compact, connected, strictly pseudoconvex CR manifold is compact unless the manifold is CR equivalent to the standard sphere. In dimensions greater…
The classical Cartan's structural equations show in a compact way the relation between a connection and its curvature, and reveals their geometric interpretation in terms of moving frames. In order to study the mathematical properties of…
We introduce the notion of a manifold admitting a simple compact Cartan 3-form $\om^3$. We study algebraic types of such manifolds specializing on those having skew-symmetric torsion, or those associated with a closed or coclosed 3-form…
We prove that the automorphism group of a topological parallelism on real projective 3-space is compact. In a preceding article it was proved that at least the connected component of the identity is compact. The present proof does not…
We define what we call morphisms of Cartan connections. We generalize the main theorems on Cartan connections to theorems on morphisms. Many of the known constructions involving Cartan connections turn out to be examples of morphisms. We…
The chains studied in this paper generalize Chern-Moser chains for CR structures. They form a distinguished family of one dimensional submanifolds in manifolds endowed with a parabolic contact structure. Both the parabolic contact structure…
We study manifolds endowed with an (almost) even Clifford (hermitian) structure and admitting a large automorphism group. We classify them when they are simply connected and the dimension of the automorphism group is maximal, and also prove…
To certain types of generic distributions (subbundles in a tangent bundle) one can associate canonical Cartan connections. Many of these constructions fall into the class of parabolic geometries. The aim of this article is to show how…
We introduce a construction for a Cartan geometry that captures the local behavior of a given geometric automorphism near a distinguished element. The result of this construction, which we call the sprawl generated by the automorphism, is…
The basic automorphism group ${A}_B(M,F)$ of a Cartan foliation $(M, F)$ is the quotient group of the automorphism group of $(M, F)$ by the normal subgroup, which preserves every leaf invariant. For Cartan foliations covered by fibrations,…
We give a new proof of Cartan's fixed point theorem using topological fixed point theory. For an odd dimensional, simply connected and complete manifold having non-positive curvature, we further prove that every isometry with finite order…
We demonstrate that integrable abelian vortex equations on constant curvature Riemann surfaces can be reinterpreted as flat non-abelian Cartan connections. By lifting to three dimensional group manifolds we find higher dimensional analogues…
We conjecture that the automorphism group of a topological parallelism on real projective 3-space is compact. We prove that at least the identity component of this group is, indeed, compact.
For a more general notion of Cartan connection we define characteristic classes, we investigate their relation to usual characteristic classes.
We investigate the local geometry of a pair of independent contact structures on 3-manifolds under maps that independently preserve each contact structure. We discover that such maps are homotheties on the contact 1-forms and we discover…
We study analogues of Cartan decompositions of Lie groups for totally disconnected locally compact groups. It is shown using these decompositions that a large class of totally disconnected locally compact groups acting on trees and…
We give simple characterizations of contact 1-forms in terms of Dirac structures. We also relate normal almost contact structures to the theory of Dirac structures.