Nonlinear splittings on fibre bundles (Q2054431)

It is well known that an Ehresmann connection on a fibre bundle \(\pi:M\to N\) can be defined as a linear bundle morphism \(M\times_N TN\to TM\), which is a splitting of certain short exact sequence of vector bundles. In the present paper the authors introduce the notion of a nonlinear splitting, which generalizes the concept of an Ehresmann connection. Such nonlinear splitting should not be confused with the standard concept of a nonlinear connection on an arbitrary vector bundle. The authors study both the similarities and the differences between nonlinear splittings and Ehresmann connections and pay attention to the special cases of affine, homogeneous and principal nonlinear splittings. In particular, they prove necessary and sufficient conditions for a nonlinear splitting to be Ehresmann or principal connection. They also introduce the concept of the curvature of a nonlinear splitting. As an application they study relations of nonlinear splittings to Lagrangian systems, Finsler geometry and submersive second-order differential equations.