Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2006 iii Paper 56 4 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
On complexified Minkowski spacetime, use the twistor incidence relationThe harmless factor is a conventional choice; omitting it corresponds to rescaling the complexified coordinates. For fixed , projectivizing the nonzero two-component spinors gives a twistor line . The two stated patches cover all these incidence lines; they describe the affine-space-time twistor domain with the line removed from full projective twistor space.
Since is holomorphically trivial, choose a global bundle frame on that line. Comparing its columns with the bundle frames in the two patch trivializations gives invertible matrices and , holomorphic on their respective patches, withThis is the holomorphic splitting of a twistor patching matrix. It follows directly from existence of the global bundle frame, rather than from an arbitrary factorization of an arbitrary matrix: nontrivial line bundles would obstruct such a nonsingular splitting.
The factors can be chosen holomorphically in near any given . An explicit local argument is useful. Normalize the known splitting at and set on a fixed circular contour in the overlap. It is close to the identity when is close to . Let select strictly positive Laurent powers, and seek positive powers satisfyingIn a holomorphic contour-function norm the operator has norm below one for sufficiently small variation, so its Neumann series converges and is holomorphic in . Then has only nonpositive powers and is holomorphic on the exterior patch including infinity. Both factors are close to the identity and invertible. They extend over their full patches through and its inverse. Taking and gives the required local family. This is also the elementary Laurent series reason that leaves no infinitesimal obstruction.
Raise primed two-component spinor indices with the antisymmetric two-component spinor form and define , holding fixed. Incidence givesThus for a pulled-back function depending only on twistor coordinates. Differentiating the splitting and multiplying by the inverse factors givesThe left expression is holomorphic on one two-component spinor patch, the right on the other, and each is homogeneous of degree one in . They therefore glue to a global matrix-valued section of on the line.
Such a section is linear in its homogeneous coordinates. To see this explicitly, set on . The normalized expression is an entire matrix function of ; on the other patch its quotient by is holomorphic at infinity. Hence it has at most linear growth. Cauchy estimates force all its derivatives of order at least two to vanish. Entry by entry it is , or invariantlyThe coefficients are holomorphic in . This proves existence of the desired space-time one-form, with no remaining dependence on in its coefficients.
A second splitting must differ by right multiplication and . Indeed the comparison matrix is holomorphic on both patches of a compact complex projective line and therefore constant along the line. The resulting transformation isthe gauge connection transformation law. Local coefficient matrices consequently glue to a holomorphic gauge connection on the bundle whose fiber at is the space of holomorphic sections of . If a single global matrix-valued one-form is wanted on all , choose a basis at the origin and parallel-transport it along the straight radial paths to each . Linear transport exists on every finite path and varies holomorphically with ; this gives a global holomorphic bundle frame. The assertion does not require flat connection in all four directions, only a fixed choice of paths for a trivialization. On more general space-time domains the intrinsic object is a gauge connection with these gauge-related local one-forms.
Finally put and . From the defining identity,Thus the columns of are an invertible parallel bundle frame in the two alpha-plane directions. Their matrix commutator must annihilate that bundle frame, soUse the spinor decomposition of gauge curvaturewhere both gauge curvature two-component spinors are symmetric. The second term vanishes under contraction with . The first is a quadratic polynomial in the two two-component spinor components; vanishing for every two-component spinor forces each of its coefficients to vanish. Thereforewhich is precisely the ASDYM equation in the convention where the primed symmetric two-component spinor is the self-dual part. Equivalently, the gauge connection is flat when restricted to every alpha-plane. This completes the forward Penrose-Ward correspondence, including both the existence of the gauge connection and its anti-self-duality of gauge curvature.