Effective Cartan-Tanaka connections on C6-smooth strongly pseudoconvex hypersurfaces M3 of C2

Abstract

In a recent expository article (Notices of the AMS, 58 (2011), no. 1, 20-27), Ezhov, McLaughlin and Schmalz showed how to perform in an effective way Tanaka's prolongation procedure valid generally for filtered structures of constant type when the distribution is equipped with an integrable complex structure, so as to derive the principal curvature invariants and (co)frame(s) associated to strongly pseudoconvex real hypersurfaces M3 in C2, an approach which is alternative and complementary to the `hyperspherical' connection of Elie Cartan, and to the so-called calculi of Fefferman, of Chern-Moser, of Webster. By choosing an initial frame for TM which is explicit in terms of a local graphing function v = f(x, y, u) for M, we provide a Cartan-Tanaka connection all elements of which are completely explicit in terms of f(x, y, u), assuming only C6-smoothness of M. The Gaussian requirement for systematic computational effectiveness then shows - a bit unexpectedly - that the two main curvatures are rational differential expressions in the sixth-order jet of f(x, y, u), the lengths of which are about 1000 pages long on a computer - just for the simplest instance of local embedded CR geometry. Large parts of the memoir aim at formulating general statements that will be useful for further constructions of Cartan-Tanaka connections related to the equivalence problem for (local) embedded CR manifolds whose CR-automorphism group is not semi-simple, cf. e.g. some model lists by Beloshapka.