Quaternionic contact Einstein structures and the quaternionic contact Yamabe problem

Abstract

A partial solution of the quaternionic contact Yamabe problem on the quaternionic sphere is given. It is shown that the torsion of the Biquard connection vanishes exactly when the trace-free part of the horizontal Ricci tensor of the Biquard connection is zero and this occurs precisely on 3-Sasakian manifolods. All conformal deformations sending the standard flat torsion-free quaternionic contact structure on the quaternionic Heisenberg group to a quaternionic contact structure with vanishing torsion of the Biquard connection are explicitly described. A '3-Hamiltonian form' of infinitesimal conformal automorphisms of quaternionic contact structures is presented.