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2.8.2 Exotic metrics on ℂ n [022M]

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2.8.2 Exotic metrics on ℂn\mathbb{C}^{n}

There are a number of recent constructions of complete Calabi-Yau metrics on ℂn\mathbb{C}^{n} with n≥3n\geq 3, that share the unifying theme of holomorphic fibrations. The works [12][20][6] start with a holomorphic fibration given by a weighted homogeneous polynomial F:ℂn→ℂF:\mathbb{C}^{n}\to\mathbb{C}, such that F−1​(0)F^{-1}(0) carries a Sasakian-Einstein cone metric. The other fibres carry asymptotically conical Calabi-Yau metrics modelled at infinity on F−1​(0)F^{-1}(0). From this, one builds a Calabi-Yau metric on ℂn\mathbb{C}^{n}, whose fibrewise restrictions are approximated by these Calabi-Yau metrics on the fibres outside of a compact region, and in the horizontal direction is approximated by the pullback of the Euclidean metric on ℂ\mathbb{C}. Such metrics on ℂn\mathbb{C}^{n} have maximal volume growth, and the tangent cone at infinity is F−1​(0)×ℂF^{-1}(0)\times\mathbb{C} with the product metric. From an algebro-geometric perspective, the singularities on F−1​(0)F^{-1}(0) are klt, which should be viewed as mild singularities. The coordinate functions on ℂn\mathbb{C}^{n} all have polynomial growth with respect to the geodesic distance to the origin, even though the growth rates are typically not linear.

Remark 2.8.

One moral is that the holomorphic structure alone is very far from specifying the metric. The recent uniqueness result [21] suggests that an additional filtration structure associated with the growth of holomorphic functions is key to the uniqueness and classification of the metrics.

More recently a family of new Taub-NUT type Calabi-Yau metrics were constructed on ℂ3\mathbb{C}^{3} [13], using a generalized Gibbons-Hawking framework. The asymptotic geometry near infinity is generically a T2T^{2}-fibration over ℝ4\mathbb{R}^{4}, but along three rays inside ℝ4\mathbb{R}^{4} the metric looks like a Taub-NUT fibration over a cylinder. These metrics are fundamentally different in that it has volume growth order V​o​l​(B⁡(r))∼O⁡(r4)Vol(B(r))\sim O(r^{4}) coming from the ℝ4\mathbb{R}^{4} direction, which is not maximal volume growth. Algebro-geometrically, these metrics are associated with the holomorphic fibration

F⁡(z1,z2,z3)=z1​z2​z3:ℂ3→ℂ,F(z_{1},z_{2},z_{3})=z_{1}z_{2}z_{3}:\mathbb{C}^{3}\to\mathbb{C},

whose fibres are generically cylinders, contributing two dimensions to T2T^{2} and two other dimensions to ℝ4\mathbb{R}^{4}. The ℂ\mathbb{C} factor contributes the other two dimensions to ℝ4\mathbb{R}^{4}. Notice the singular fibres are reducible, and the nature of the singularity is much worse than klt. In terms of the growth of holomorphic functions, only z1​z2​z3z_{1}z_{2}z_{3} has polynomial growth, while z1,z2,z3z_{1},z_{2},z_{3} individually all have exponential type growth, meaning that log⁡|zk|\log|z_{k}| has polynomial growth.

Remark 2.9.

The Taub-NUT metric is a much more classical prototype. Its asymptotic geometry is an S1S^{1}-bundle over ℝ3\mathbb{R}^{3}, with non-maximal volume growth V​o​l​(B⁡(r))=O⁡(r3)Vol(B(r))=O(r^{3}). Algebro-geometrically the Taub-NUT is associated with the fibration ℂ2→z1​z2ℂ\mathbb{C}^{2}\xrightarrow{z_{1}z_{2}}\mathbb{C}, whose fibres are cylinders. The holomorphic function z1​z2z_{1}z_{2} has polynomial growth, while z1,z2z_{1},z_{2} individually have exponential growth.

In view of these constructions, the new feature of this paper is that in the generalized Calabi ansatz, the approximately Calabi-Yau fibres do not appear as fibres of holomorphic fibrations, but rather come from the effective description of an iterated non-holomorphic fibration. The algebraic functions on XX have exponential type growth. The prototype of these phenomena is of course already known in the case of the Calabi ansatz, but we believe the NA MA equation points towards a much larger generality of examples, not limited to ODE reduction methods.

Remark 2.10.

A recent paper of Biquard and Delcroix [2] constructs Calabi-Yau metrics on certain rank 2 complex symmetric spaces using small cohomogeneity methods. A real Monge-Ampère type ODE [2, Prop 2.3] also plays a prominent role, and the relation with our construction seems to deserve some further investigation.

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