Skew-symmetric complex matrices, pure spinors, the twistor space of the conformal $2n$-sphere, and the Fano variety of linear $n$-folds of a non-singular complex quadric hypersurface in $\mathbb{P}^{2n+1}$

Abstract

For $n \geq 1$, the twistor space $\mathfrak{Z}(\mathbb{S}^{2n})$ of the conformal $2n$-sphere is biholomorphic to the Zariski closure, taken in the complex Grassmannian manifold $\mathbf{G}(n+1, 2n+2)$, of the set of graphs of skew-symmetric linear endomorphism of $\mathbb{C}^{n+1}$. We use this fact to describe a natural stratification of the twistor space $\mathfrak{Z}(\mathbb{S}^{2n})$ with $n \geq 3$, in terms of what we have called {\it generalised complex orthogonal Stiefel manifolds} of $\mathbb{C}^{n+1}$. In particular, the twistor space $\mathfrak{Z}(\mathbb{S}^{6})$ is biholomorphic to a non-singular complex quadric hypersurface in $\mathbb{P}^{7}$. We explicitly construct a real-analytic foliation, by linear 3-folds, of this quadric hypersurface such that the quotient space is isomorphic to the 6-sphere with its standard metric. This foliation is Riemannian with respect to the Fubini-Study metric and isometrically equivalent to the twistor fibration over the 6-sphere.