The Sasaki Join, Hamiltonian 2-forms, and Sasaki-Einstein Metrics

By combining the join construction from Sasakian geometry with the Hamiltonian 2-form construction from K\"ahler geometry, we recover Sasaki-Einstein metrics discovered by physicists. Our geometrical approach allows us to give an algorithm for computing the topology of these Sasaki-Einstein manifolds. In particular, we explicitly compute the cohomology rings for several cases of interest and give a formula for homotopy equivalence in one particular 7-dimensional case. We also show that our construction gives at least a two dimensional cone of both Sasaki-Ricci solitons and extremal Sasaki metrics.