Projective versus metric structures (Q764523)

A projective structure is an equivalent class of torsion free connections with an equivalence relation \(\nabla \sim \nabla'\) by: \[ \nabla'_X Y = \nabla_XY +A(X)Y +A(Y)X \] for some one form \(A\). Two connections from a projective class have the same unparametrised geodesics and the converse is also true. The author presents a number of conditions which are necessary for a projective structure to include the Levi-Civita connection of some metric on an \(n\)-dimensional manifold. One of the theorems states that a torsion-free connection \(\tilde{\nabla}\) is projectively equivalent to a Levi-Civita connection \(\hat{\nabla}\) of a metric \(\hat{g}_{ab}\), if and only if the projective class of \(\tilde{\nabla}\) contains a special projective subclass \([\nabla]\) so that for any \(\nabla \in [\nabla]\), there exists a non degenerate symmetric tensor \(g^{ab}\) and a vector field \(\mu^a\) such that \[ \nabla_c g^{ab} = \mu^a \delta_c^b +\mu^b \delta^a_c \] or, which is the same, there exists a non degenerate \(g^{ab}\) and \(\mu^a\) such that \[ Dg^{ab} = \mu^a \theta^b +\mu^b \theta^a. \] The arguments in this article consist mainly of tensor calculus based on classical theory of connections. The article also provides basic information on invariants of projective structures, including the treatment via the Cartan normal projective connection. In particular it is shown that there are a number of Fefferman-like conformal structures, defined on a subbundle of the Cartan bundle of the projective structure, which encode the projectively invariant information. The author also provides an algorithm which checks whether a Levi-Civita connection is in the class and, which finds this connection and the metric, when it is possible.