On a contact 3-structure

Abstract.

A contact 3-structure consists of three contact metric structures which satisfy the relation (2.1). On a product manifold of the real line and a manifold with a contact 3-structure, we can construct three almost Hermitian structures satisfying the quaternionic identities. From this view point we discuss a contact 3-structure. Owing to Hitchin's well known Lemma concerning to hyperkähler structure (Lemma H), we show that a contact 3-structure is necessarily a Sasakian 3-structure.