Twistor sections of Dirac bundles

Abstract

A Dirac bundle is a euclidean bundle over a riemannian manifold $M$ which is a compatible left $C\ell(M)$-module, together with a metric connection also compatible with the Clifford action in a natural way. We prove some vanishing theorems and introduce the twistor equation within this framework. In particular, we exhibit a characterization of solutions for this equation in terms of the Dirac operator $D$ and a suitable Weitzenb\"ock-type curvature operator $\mathcal{R}$. Finally, we analyze the especial case of the Clifford bundle to prove existence of nontrivial solutions of the twistor equation on spheres.