In mathematics and theoretical physics (especially twistor theory), twistor space is the complex vector space of solutions of the twistor equation
It was described in the 1960s by Roger Penrose and Malcolm MacCallum.
[1] According to Andrew Hodges, twistor space is useful for conceptualizing the way photons travel through space, using four complex numbers.
He also posits that twistor space may aid in understanding the asymmetry of the weak nuclear force.
[2] In the (translated) words of Jacques Hadamard: "the shortest path between two truths in the real domain passes through the complex domain."
Therefore when studying four-dimensional space
However, since there is no canonical way of doing so, instead all isomorphisms respecting orientation and metric between the two are considered.
It turns out that complex projective 3-space
parametrizes such isomorphisms together with complex coordinates.
Thus one complex coordinate describes the identification and the other two describe a point in
It turns out that vector bundles with self-dual connections on
(instantons) correspond bijectively to holomorphic vector bundles on complex projective 3-space
For Minkowski space, denoted
, the solutions to the twistor equation are of the form where
are two constant Weyl spinors and
is a point in Minkowski space.
This twistor space is a four-dimensional complex vector space, whose points are denoted by
, and with a hermitian form which is invariant under the group SU(2,2) which is a quadruple cover of the conformal group C(1,3) of compactified Minkowski spacetime.
Points in Minkowski space are related to subspaces of twistor space through the incidence relation This incidence relation is preserved under an overall re-scaling of the twistor, so usually one works in projective twistor space, denoted
, which is isomorphic as a complex manifold to
it is related to a line in projective twistor space where we can see the incidence relation as giving the linear embedding of a
The geometric relation between projective twistor space and complexified compactified Minkowski space is the same as the relation between lines and two-planes in twistor space; more precisely, twistor space is It has associated to it the double fibration of flag manifolds
is the projective twistor space and
is the compactified complexified Minkowski space and the correspondence space between
stands for projective space,
The double fibration gives rise to two correspondences (see also Penrose transform),
The compactified complexified Minkowski space
by the Plücker embedding; the image is the Klein quadric.