Degenerate homogeneous affine surfaces in \(\mathbb{R}^ 3\) (Q1345131)

A surface of \(\mathbb{R}^3\) is called degenerate if its equi-affine fundamental form has rank less 2 everywhere. In general, only the conformal class of this fundamental form is given by affine data. But since this class is the same as that of the Euclidean second fundamental form, degeneracy in the present sense is equivalent to flatness in Euclidean geometry. Hence a degenerate surface is a developable, so generically the tangent surface of a space curve, a cylinder or a cone. The author determines all the degenerate surfaces which are unimodular homogeneous. They must be affinely equivalent to open parts of a plane (rank = 0) or a quadratic cylinder or quadratic cone. The proof uses a successive adapting procedure for affine frames.