Deformations of Levi flat hypersurfaces in complex manifolds

Abstract: We first give a deformation theory of integrable distributions of codimension 1. We define a parametrization of families of smooth hypersurfaces near a Levi flat hypersurface L such that the Levi flat deformations are given by the solutions of the Maurer-Cartan equation in a DGLA associated to the Levi foliation. We say that L is infinitesimally rigid if the tangent cone at the origin to the moduli space of Levi flat deformations of L is trivial. We prove the infinitesimal rigidity of compact transversally parallelisable Levi flat hypersurfaces in compact complex manifolds and give sufficient conditions for infinitesimal rigidity in Kahler manifolds. As an application, we prove the nonexistence of transversally parallelizable Levi flat hypersurfaces in a class of manifolds which contains the complex projective plane.