The aim of this paper is to prove that a large class of quaternionic slice regular functions result to be (ramified) covering maps. By means of the topological implications of this fact and by providing further topological structures, we are able to give suitable natural conditions for the existence of $k$-th $star$-roots of a slice regular function. Moreover, we are also able to compute all the solutions which, quite surprisingly, in the most general case, are in number of $k^2$. The last part is devoted to compute the monodromy and to present a technique to compute all the $k^2$ roots starting from one of them.
We introduce a new geometrical invariant of CR manifolds of hypersurface type, which we dub the Levi core of the manifold. When the manifold is the boundary of a smooth bounded pseudoconvex domain, we show how the Levi core is related to two other important global invariants in several complex variables: the Diederich--Forn{ae}ss index and the DAngelo class (namely the set of DAngelo forms of the boundary). We also show that the Levi core is trivial whenever the domain is of finite-type in the sense of DAngelo, or the set of weakly pseudoconvex points is contained in a totally real submanifold, while it is nontrivial if the boundary contains a local maximum set. As corollaries to the theory developed here, we prove that for any smooth bounded pseudoconvex domain with trivial Levi core the Diederich--Forn{ae}ss index is one and the $overline{partial}$-Neumann problem is exactly regular (via a result of Kohn and its generalization by Harrington). Our work builds on and expands recent results of Liu and Adachi--Yum.
We provide a family of isolated tangent to the identity germs $f:(mathbb{C}^3,0) to (mathbb{C}^3,0)$ which possess only degenerate characteristic directions, and for which the lift of $f$ to any modification (with suitable properties) has only degenerate characteristic directions. This is in sharp contrast with the situation in dimension $2$, where any isolated tangent to the identity germ $f$ admits a modification where the lift of $f$ has a non-degenerate characteristic direction. We compare this situation with the resolution of singularities of the infinitesimal generator of $f$, showing that this phenomenon is not related to the non-existence of complex separatrices for vector fields of Gomez-Mont and Luengo. Finally, we describe the set of formal $f$-invariant curves, and the associated parabolic manifolds, using the techniques recently developed by Lopez-Hernanz, Raissy, Ribon, Sanz Sanchez, Vivas.
A complex manifold $X$ is emph{weakly complete} if it admits a continuous plurisubharmonic exhaustion function $phi$. The minimal kernels $Sigma_X^k, k in [0,infty]$ (the loci where are all $mathcal{C}^k$ plurisubharmonic exhaustion functions fail to be strictly plurisubharmonic),introduced by Slodkowski-Tomassini, and the Levi currents, introduced by Sibony, are both concepts aimed at measuring how far $X$ is from being Stein. We compare these notions, prove that all Levi currents are supported by all the $Sigma_X^k$s, and give sufficient conditions for points in $Sigma_X^k$ to be in the support of some Levi current. When $X$ is a surface and $phi$ can be chosen analytic, building on previous work by the second author, Slodkowski, and Tomassini,we prove the existence of a Levi current precisely supported on $Sigma_X^infty$, and give a classification of Levi currents on $X$. In particular,unless $X$ is a modification of a Stein space, every point in $X$ is in the support of some Levi current.
