Maximally non-integrable almost complex structures: an $h$-principle and cohomological properties

Abstract

We study almost complex structures with lower bounds on the rank of the Nijenhuis tensor. Namely, we show that they satisfy an $h$-principle. As a consequence, all parallelizable manifolds and all manifolds of dimension $2n\geq 10$ (respectively $\geq 6$) admit a almost complex structure whose Nijenhuis tensor has maximal rank everywhere (resp. is nowhere trivial). For closed $4$-manifolds, the existence of such structures is characterized in terms of topological invariants. Moreover, we show that the Dolbeault cohomology of non-integrable almost complex structures is often infinite dimensional (even on compact manifolds).