Linear Perturbations of Quaternionic Metrics

We extend the twistor methods developed in our earlier work on linear deformations of hyperkähler manifolds [1] to the case of quaternionic-Kähler manifolds. Via Swann’s construction, deformations of a 4d-dimensional quaternionic-Kähler manifold M are in one-to-one correspondence with deformations of its 4d + 4-dimensional hyperkähler cone S . The latter can be encoded in variations of the complex symplectomorphisms which relate different locally flat patches of the twistor space ZS , with a suitable homogeneity condition that ensures that the hyperkähler cone property is preserved. Equivalently, we show that the deformations of M can be encoded in variations of the complex contact transformations which relate different locally flat patches of the twistor space ZM of M , by-passing the Swann bundle and its twistor space. We specialize these general results to the case of quaternionic-Kähler metrics with d + 1 commuting isometries, obtainable by the Legendre transform method, and linear deformations thereof. We illustrate our methods for the hypermultiplet moduli space in string theory compactifications at tree- and one-loop level.