The Poincare lemma and local embeddability

Abstract

For pseudoconvex abstract CR manifolds, the validity of the Poincare Lemma for (0,1) forms implies local embeddability in C^N. The two properties are equivalent for hypersurfaces of real dimension > or = 5. As a corollary we obtain a criterion for the non validity of the Poicare Lemma for (0,1) forms for a large class of abstract CR manifolds of CR codimension larger than one.