Abstract:
We use the method of model surfaces to study real four-dimensional
submanifolds of $\mathbb C^3$. We prove that the dimension of the holomorphic
symmetry group of any germ of an analytic four-dimensional manifold does
not exceed 5 if this dimension is finite. (There are only two exceptional
cases of infinite dimension.) The envelope of holomorphy of the model
surface is calculated. We construct a normal form for arbitrary germs
and use it to give a holomorphic classification of completely
non-degenerate germs. It is shown that the existence of
a completely non-degenerate CR-structure
imposes strong restrictions on the topological structure of the manifold.
In particular, the four-sphere $S^4$ admits no completely
non-degenerate embedding into a three-dimensional complex manifold.