Curvature and the Second fundamental form in classifying quasi-homogeneous holomorphic curves and operators in the Cowen-Douglas class

Abstract: In this paper we study quasi-homogeneous operators, which include the homogeneous operators, in the Cowen-Douglas class. We give two separate theorems describing canonical models (with respect to equivalence under unitary and invertible operators, respectively) for these operators using techniques from complex geometry. This considerably extends the similarity and unitary classification of homogeneous operators in the Cowen-Douglas class obtained recently by the last author and A. Kor\'{a}nyi. Specifically, the complex geometric invariants used for our classification are the curvature and the second fundamental forms inherent in the definition of a quasi-homogeneous operator. We show that these operators are irreducible and determine when they are strongly irreducible. Applications include the equality of the topological and algebraic K-group of a quasi-homogeneous operator and an affirmative answer to a well-known question of Halmos on similarity for these operators.