Killing pairs in flat space (Q1267049): Difference between revisions

The author considers ``Killing pairs'' of tensors on a spacetime, that is, a pair of totally symmetric tensors \(A_{a\dots b}\), \(B_{a\dots b}\) (not necessarily of the same order) such that along an affinely parametrised geodesic with tangent vector \(U\), the quantity \[ {A_{a\dots b} U^a \dots U^b\over B_{a\dots b}U^a \dots U^b} \] is constant. A Killing pair is called trivial if either \(A\) and \(B\) are each Killing tensors, that is, \[ A_{(a\dots b;c)} =0,\quad B_{(a\dots b;c)}=0, \] or if \(A\) and \(B\) are of the same order (as tensors) and \(B=CA\) where \(C\) is constant. The author proceeds to show, for a flat \(n\)-dimensional space, that any Killing pair \(A\) and \(B\), each of which is a tensor of order one, is trivial. The proof involves a direct computation from the components and unfortunately gives little insight into the geometrical nature of the result.