Kähler manifolds with orthogonal coordinates

Abstract

If one could assume that local coordinates in a Riemannian manifold were orthogonal, then local expressions for differential operators, and curvature computations, would be simplified. It is always possible on 2-manifolds, using geometric normal coordinates or isothermal coordinates. In 1984, Dennis DeTurck and Dean Yang constructed smooth orthogonal coordinates on any Riemannian 3-manifold. In fact, they showed that, at any point in a 3-manifold, and for any orthonormal frame at that point, there is a set of local orthogonal coordinates so that the partial derivatives at that point are that frame. Recently, Paul Gauduchon and Andrei Moroianu showed, by contrast, that there are no orthogonal coordinates on $\mathbb{CP}^{n}$ or $\mathbb{HP}^{n}$. Their proof strongly uses the simplicity of the curvature tensor for these spaces. The main theorem of the present article is to show that the only 4 real-dimensional Kähler manifolds which admit real orthogonal coordinates are, up to a cover, a Riemannian product of 2 Riemann surfaces.