Theorem
Newlander–Nirenberg theorem
A smooth almost-complex structure is integrable exactly when its Nijenhuis tensor vanishes.
Statement
Let be a smooth almost-complex structure on a smooth manifold , and let be its Nijenhuis tensor. The Newlander–Nirenberg theorem states
Equivalently, vanishing of the Nijenhuis tensor guarantees local complex coordinates whose standard multiplication by induces .
The theorem is local: it produces a complex-manifold structure, not one global coordinate chart. The statement here is in the category; finite- and low-regularity versions require their own hypotheses. In real dimension two, every smooth almost-complex structure satisfies the criterion and is therefore integrable.
References
August Newlander and Louis Nirenberg, “Complex Analytic Coordinates in Almost Complex Manifolds,” Annals of Mathematics 65 (1957), 391–404. DOI record.