On differential geometry of non-degenerate CR manifolds

In this paper, we consider a non-degenerate CR manifold (M, H (M), J) with a given pseudo-Hermitian 1-form, and endow the CR distribution H (M) with any Hermitian metric h instead of the Levi form L. This induces a natural Riemannian metric g₇, on M compatible with the structure. The synthetic object (M, , J, h) will be called a pseudo-Hermitian manifold, which generalizes the usual notion of pseudo-Hermitian manifold (M, , J, L) in the literature. Our purpose is to investigate the differential-geometric aspect of pseudo-Hermitian manifolds. By imitating Hermitian geometry, we find a canonical connection on (M, , J, h), which generalizes the Tanaka-Webster connection on (M, , J, L). We define the pseudo-K\"ahler 2-form by g₇, and J; and introduce the notion of a pseudo-K\"ahler manifold, which is an analogue of a K\"ahler manifold. It turns out that (M, , J, L) is pseudo-K\"ahlerian. Using the structure equations of the canonical connection, we derive some curvature and torsion properties of a pseudo-Hermitian manifold, in particular of a pseudo-K\"ahler manifold. Then some known results in Riemannian geometry are generalized to the pseudo-Hermitian case. These results include some Cartan type results. As an application, we give a new proof for the classification of Sasakian space forms.