Connections with totally skew-symmetric torsion and nearly-Kähler geometry

Abstract

We study almost Hermitian structures admitting a Hermitian connection with totally skew-symmetric torsion or equivalently, those almost Hermitian structures with totally skew-symmetric Nijenhuis tensor. We investigate up to what extent the Nijenhuis tensor fails to be parallel with respect to the characteristic connection. This is naturally described by means of an extension of the notion of Killing form to almost Hermitian geometry. In this context, we also make an essentially self-contained survey of nearly-Kähler geometry, from the perspective of non-integrable holonomy systems.