Rectification of circles and quaternions. (Q1396349)

A collection of curves in \(\mathbb{R}^{n}\) passing through the origin \(O\) is said to be a simple bundle of curves if no two of them are tangent at \(O\). A simple bundle of curves is called rectifiable if there exist a germ of diffeomorphisms in a neighborhood of the origin which sends all curves of the bundle to straight lines. For \(n=2,3,\) a rectifiable simple bundle of circles, containing sufficiently many circles in general position passes through some other common point. This is not true for dimension 4. At first the author establishes an algebraic description of rectifiable simple bundles of circles. Thus, in any dimension, the analytic problem of classification of such bundles is reduced to an algebraic one. Then, among other things, the author proves the following: A rectifiable simple bundle of circles containing sufficiently many circles in general position is the image of a bundle of straight lines under some quaternionic fractional transformation.