On Riemannian four-manifolds and their twistor spaces: a moving frame approach

Abstract

In this paper we study the twistor space $Z$ of an oriented Riemannian four-manifold $M$ using the moving frame approach, focusing, in particular, on the Einstein, non-self-dual setting. We prove that any general first-order linear condition on the almost complex structures of $Z$ forces the underlying manifold $M$ to be self-dual, also recovering most of the known related rigidity results. Thus, we are naturally lead to consider first-order quadratic conditions, showing that the Atiyah-Hitchin-Singer almost Hermitian twistor space of an Einstein four-manifold bears a resemblance, in a suitable sense, to a nearly Kähler manifold.