Deformation of spherical CR structures and the universal Picard variety

Abstract

We study deformation of spherical $CR$ circle bundles over Riemann surfaces of genus > 1. There is a one to one correspondence between such deformation space and the so-called universal Picard variety. Our differential-geometric proof of the structure and dimension of the unramified universal Picard variety has its own interest, and our theory has its counterpart in the Teichmuller theory.