Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
The non-linear graviton construction of Penrose (9) and the ℋ-space construction of Newman (6) are two complementary techniques for constructing complex four dimensional space-times with quadratic metric and anti-self-dual curvature tensor.
In the former, the space-time is the space of holomorphic sections of a complex fibre space obtained by deforming part of flat twistor space. In the latter the space-time is the space of regular solutions of a differential equation, the good cut equation.
Pathologies arise in the non-linear graviton construction when the normal bundle of a holomorphic section changes. This is reflected in the ℋ-space construction by a change in the character of the solutions of the linearized good cut equation, the Newman equation.