Deformations of generalized calibrations and compact non-Kahler manifolds with vanishing first Chern class

Abstract

We investigate the deformation theory of a class of generalized calibrations in Riemannian manifolds for which the tangent bundle has reduced structure group U(n), SU(n), G_2 and Spin(7). For this we use the property of the associated calibration form to be parallel with respect to a metric connection which may have non-vanishing torsion. In all these cases, we find that if there is a moduli space, then it is finite dimensional. We present various examples of generalized calibrations that include almost hermitian manifolds with structure group U(n) or SU(n), nearly parallel G_2 manifolds and group manifolds. We find that some Hopf fibrations are deformation families of generalized calibrations. In addition, we give sufficient conditions for a hermitian manifold (M,g,J) to admit Chern and Bismut connections with holonomy contained in SU(n). In particular we show that any connected sum of $k \geq 3$ copies of $S^3 \times S^3$ admits a hermitian structure for which the restricted holonomy of a Bismut connection is contained in SU(3).