Cayley deformations of compact complex surfaces

Abstract

In this article, we consider Cayley deformations of a compact complex surface in a Calabi--Yau four-fold. We will study complex deformations of compact complex submanifolds of Calabi--Yau manifolds with a view to explaining why complex and Cayley deformations of a compact complex surface are the same. We in fact prove that the moduli space of complex deformations of any compact complex embedded submanifold of a Calabi--Yau manifold is a smooth manifold.