NORMAL FORMS FOR NONINTEGRABLE ALMOST CR STRUCTURES

We propose two constructions extending the Chern-Moser normal form to non-integrable Levi-nondegenerate (hypersurface type) almost CR structures. One of them translates the Chern-Moser normalization into pure intrinsic setting, whereas the other directly extends the (extrinsic) Chern-Moser normal form by allowing non-CR embeddings that are in some sense "maximally CR". One of the main differences with the classical integrable case is the presence of the non-integrability tensor at the same order as the Levi form, making impossible a good quadric approximation—a key tool in the Chern-Moser theory. Partial normal forms are obtained for general almost CR structures of any CR codimension, in particular, for almost-complex structures. Applications are given to the equivalence problem and the Lie group structure of the group of all CR-diffeomorphisms.