Quaternionic Geometry in Dimension 8

This chapter describes the 8-dimensional Wolf spaces as cohomogeneity one SU(3)-manifolds, and discover perturbations of the quaternion-kähler metric on the simply connected 8-manifold G2/SO(4) that carry a closed fundamental 4-form but are not Einstein.

The Role of Spin(9) in Octonionic Geometry

Starting from the 2001 Thomas Friedrich’s work on Spin ( 9 ) , we review some interactions between Spin ( 9 ) and geometries related to octonions. Several topics are discussed in this respect: explicit descriptions of the Spin ( 9 ) canonical 8-form and its analogies with quaternionic geometry as well as the role of Spin ( 9 ) both in the classical problems of vector fields on spheres and in the geometry of the octonionic Hopf fibration. Next, we deal with locally conformally parallel Spin ( 9 ) manifolds in the framework of intrinsic torsion. Finally, we discuss applications of Clifford systems and Clifford structures to Cayley–Rosenfeld planes and to three series of Grassmannians.

The Role of Spin(9) in Octonionic Geometry

Starting from Thomas Friedrich’s work “Weak Spin(9) structures on 16-dimensional Riemannian manifolds”, we review several interactions between Spin(9) and geometries related to octonions. Several topics are discussed in this respect: explicit descriptions of the Spin(9) canonical 8-form and its analogies with quaternionic geometry, the role of Spin(9) both in the classical problems of vector fields on spheres and in the geometry of the octonionic Hopf fibration. Next, we deal with locally conformally parallel Spin(9) manifolds in the framework of intrinsic torsion. Finally, we discuss applications of Clifford systems and Clifford structures to Cayley-Rosenfeld planes and to three series of Grassmannians.

Quaternionic-like manifolds and homogeneous twistor spaces

Motivated by the quaternionic geometry corresponding to the homogeneous complex manifolds endowed with (holomorphically) embedded spheres, we introduce and initiate the study of the ‘quaternionic-like manifolds’. These contain, as particular subclasses, the CR quaternionic and the ρ -quaternionic manifolds. Moreover, the notion of ‘heaven space’ finds its adequate level of generality in this setting: (essentially) any real analytic quaternionic-like manifold admits a (germ) unique heaven space, which is a ρ -quaternionic manifold. We, also, give a natural construction of homogeneous complex manifolds endowed with embedded spheres, thus, emphasizing the abundance of the quaternionic-like manifolds.