Related papers: Deformations of Nonholonomic Two-plane Fields in F…
There is a remarkable type of field of two-planes special to four dimensions known as an Engel distributions. They are the only stable regular distributions besides the contact, quasi-contact and line fields. If an arbitrary two-plane field…
A completely nonintegrable $2$-dimensional distribution on a $4$-manifold is called an Engel structure. A $4$-manifold with an Engel structure is called an Engel manifold. The developing map for an Engel manifold is very important tool to…
We study the geometry of Engel structures, which are 2-plane fields on 4-manifolds satisfying a generic condition, that are compatible with other geometric structures. A complex Engel structure is an Engel 2-plane field on a complex surface…
We study the geometry of Engel structures, which are 2-plane fields on 4-manifolds satisfying a generic condition, that are compatible with other geometric structures. A \em{Lagrangian} Engel structure is an Engel 2-plane field on a…
In early study of Engel manifolds from R. Montgomery, the Cartan prolongation and the development map are central figures. However, the development map can be globally defined only if the characteristic foliation is "nice". In this paper,…
This paper is about geometric and Riemannian properties of Engel structures, i.e. maximally non-integrable $2$-plane fields on $4$-manifolds. Two $1$-forms $\alpha$ and $\beta$ are called Engel defining forms if…
We relate open book decompositions of a 4-manifold M with its Engel structures. Our main result is, given an open book decomposition of M whose binding is a collection of 2-tori and whose monodromy preserves a framing of a page, the…
We develop a construction of Engel stuctures on 4-manifolds based on decompositions of manifolds into round handles. This allows us to show that all parallelizable 4-manifolds admit an Engel structure. We also show that, given two Engel…
An Engel manifold is a 4-manifold with a completely non-integrable 2-distribution called Engel structure. I research the functorial relation between Engel manifolds and Contact 3-orbifolds. And I construct an Engel manifold that the…
We apply spectral sequences to derive both an obstruction to the existence of $n$-fold prolongations and a topological classification. Prolongations have been used in the literature in an attempt to prove that every Engel structure on…
We describe a complete system of invariants for 4-dimensional CR manifolds of CR dimension 1 and codimension 2 with Engel CR distribution by constructing an explicit canonical Cartan connection. We also investigate the relation between the…
Engel structures on M x S^1 and M x I are studied in this paper, where M is a 3-dimensional manifold. We suppose that these structures have characteristic line fields parallel to the fibres, S^1 or I. It is proved that they are…
We study pairs of Engel structures on four-manifolds whose intersection has constant rank one and which define the same even contact structure, but induce different orientations on it. We establish a correspondence between such pairs of…
A holomorphic Engel structure determines a flag of distributions $\mathcal{W}\subset \mathcal{D}\subset \mathcal{E}$. We construct examples of Engel structures on $\mathbf{C}^4$ such that each of these distributions is hyperbolic in the…
We introduce a modification procedure for Engel structures that is reminiscent of the Lutz twist in 3-dimensional Contact Topology. This notion allows us to define what an Engel overtwisted disc is, and to prove a complete h-principle for…
We study the equivalence problem for $4$-dimensional CR-manifolds of CR-dimension $1$ and codimension $2$ which are referred to as Engel CR-manifolds. We construct a canonical Cartan connection on such CR-manifolds through Cartan…
In [CPPP] it was shown that Engel structures satisfy an existence $h$-principle, and the question of whether a full $h$-principle holds was left open. In this note we address the classification problem, up to Engel deformation, of Cartan…
We compute the contact manifold of null geodesics of the family of spacetimes $\{(\mathbb{S}^2\times\mathbb{S}^1, g_\circ-\frac{d^2}{c^2}dt^2)\}_{d,c\in\mathbb{N}^+\text{ coprime}}$, with $g_\circ$ the round metric on $\mathbb{S}^2$ and $t$…
Recently there has been renewed interest among differential geometers in the theory of Engel structures. We introduce holomorphic analogues of these structures, and pose the problem of classifying projective manifolds admitting them.…
We show that tori in Engel 4-manifolds behave analogously to knots in contact 3-manifolds: Every torus with trivial normal bundle is isotopic to infinitely many distinct transverse tori, distinguished locally (and globally in the…