Almost abelian pseudo-Kähler Lie algebras

Abstract

We study invariant pseudo-Kähler structures on a solvmanifold $G$ such that the Lie algebra $\mathfrak{g}$ is almost abelian, that is $\mathfrak{g}=\mathfrak{h}\rtimes\mathbb{R}$, with $\mathfrak{h}$ abelian; comparing with the positive-definite case, an additional situation occurs, corresponding to the ideal $\mathfrak{h}$ being degenerate. We obtain a classification up to unitary isomorphism in all dimensions. We deduce that every nilpotent almost abelian Lie algebra endowed with a complex structure also admits a compatible pseudo-Kähler structure, and prove that this is no longer true for general almost abelian Lie algebras; indeed, we classify all the almost abelian Lie algebras that admit a complex structure and a symplectic structure but no compatible pseudo-Kähler metric. We study the curvature of the metrics we have obtained, and use some of them to construct Einstein pseudo-Kähler metrics in two dimensions higher.