1.2.1. Elementary examples [03YW]
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1.2.1. Elementary examples
Example 1.6.
(Constant solution) The simplest solution is where and are independent of the base variables and satisfy (1.9). We shall see that many interesting solutions can be thought heuristically as perturbation of the constant solution after introducing some topology. Some important special cases for us are:
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, is symmetric positive definite, and . We write . The subcase where takes value in will be relevant for constructing new Taub-NUT type Calabi-Yau metrics on , and the subcase where is a periodic variable will be relevant for the positive vertex. In the periodic case the choice of the connection is parametrised by .
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, is Hermitian, and . We write . Here are periodic coordinates with period 1. The choice of the connection is parametrised by . This case will be relevant for the negative vertex. Notice that if we demand that the fibration on induced by is a special Lagrangian fibration with phase zero, then we would need , namely is symmetric.
Example 1.7.
( Harvey-Lawson example) The affine space with the standard Euclidean metric and holomorphic volume form admits a diagonal -action, where the -th circle factor acts by
The corresponding moment coordinates are
This defines a -bundle away from the singular locus . Special cases include (1.1)(1.3). The inverse matrices are
viewed as functions of and . The special Lagrangian fibration described by Remark 1.6 is the well known Harvey-Lawson example.
We notice in particular when that the discriminant locus of the singular -bundle is given by as in (1.2). This is not an accidental feature of the Euclidean metric:
Lemma 1.6.
Let be equipped with the holomorphic volume form above, and let be any -invariant Kähler form with infinite volume on the singular loci for any . Then the discriminant locus of the singular -bundle is in moment coordinates and .
Proof.
The discriminant locus is the image of the singular locus under the moment map. We shall focus on . The holomorphic moment coordinate depends only on and the action, so as before and vanishes on . The symplectic moment coordinates are defined by , and are normalised to be zero at . In particular since the Hamiltonian vector field vanishes on , the moment must be the constant zero on . Furthermore on by considering the weight of the remaining action at the fixed point, so the image of is contained in . The infinite volume condition and the formula
ensure that stretches to infinity, so is the image of . Likewise the image of is and the image of is . ∎
Example 1.8.
(Taub-NUT) We take , and , where is a positive constant. This defines a Calabi-Yau metric whose asymptotic geometry at infinity approaches the constant solution (cf. Example 1.6), with asymptotic circles of length fibred over a flat 3-dimensional base. Different choices of define the same metric up to scaling. The first Chern class of the -bundle over evaluates to on any sphere around the origin in ; equivalently, the 3-current is represented by the origin viewed as a codimension 3 cycle. Written in terms of the delta function,
From the holomorphic perspective, LeBrun [17] observes that the Taub-NUT space is biholomorphic to . To see this, recall and notice the (1,0) form is closed, so locally is the differential of a holomorphic function. The line integrals
define holomorphic functions up to over the regions and respectively, so and are well defined over the respective regions. Since we can normalise to satisfy the functional equation , whence and extend as global holomorphic functions. These coordinates exhibit the biholomorphism to . By considering the Hamiltonian vector field acting on , we idenitfy the action as
The holomorphic volume form is
Thus defines holomorphic fibration of by affine quadrics. The generic quadric fibre is topologically a cylinder, and metrically is also approaching the flat cylindrical metric near spatial infinity. When , the quadric fibre degenerates into a union of two complex lines with simple normal crossing, where each line looks metrically like a cylinder with one capped end.