Conformal structure in affine geometry: Complete Tchebychev hypersurfaces (Q1349496)

Let \(V\) be a real vector space and \(x: M\to V\) a centroaffine hypersurface immersion. In [Result. Math. 27, 77-92 (1995; Zbl 0836.53006)], \textit{H. L. Liu} and \textit{C. P. Wang} introduced the Tchebychev operator \({\mathcal I}:TM\to TM\) by \({\mathcal I}:=\nabla(c)T\), where \(\nabla(c)\) is the Levi-Civita connection with respect to the centroaffine metric \(h(c)\) (\(c\) centroaffine) and \(T\) the centroaffine Tchebychev vector field. Tchebychev-hypersurfaces are characterized by the relation \({\mathcal I}=\lambda\text{ id } (\lambda:M\to \mathbb{R})\). The present paper deals with the discussion of the conformal structure of Tchebychev-hypersurfaces. The main result is a conformal classification of affine-complete centroaffine Tchebychev-hypersurfaces. Another part of the paper deals with a global characterization of closed Tchebychev-hypersurfaces. In the 2-dimensional case, the first and third author characterized the ellipsoid as Tchebychev ovaloid. In the present paper, this result is extended to higher dimensions under the weak additional assumption of regular equiaffine Gauss map. The main tool of the proofs are well-known second order PDE systems which can be used to characterize Tchebychev-hypersurfaces.