Conformally related Douglas metrics in dimension two are Randers (Q2657488)

A Finsler metric \(F\) on the manifold \(M^{n}\) is a Douglas metric if the spray coefficients have the form \[ G^{i}(x,y)=\frac{1}{2}\Gamma _{jk}^{i}(x)y^{j}y^{k}+P(x,y)y^{i}, \] where \(\Gamma =\left( \Gamma _{jk}^{i}(x)\right)\) is an affine connection and \(P(x,y)\) is a local positive homogeneous function of degree one. The main result of this paper is that, for the dimension \(n=2\), if a Finsler metric \(F\), together with its associated conformal Finsler metric \(e^{\sigma (x)}F\), are both Douglas metrics, then the Finsler metric \(F\) is a Randers metric of the form \(F=\alpha +\beta \), where \(\alpha =\sqrt{a_{ij}(x)y^{i}y^{j}}\) is a Riemannian metric and we have \(\beta =df\) (here \(f=f(x)\) is a function on the manifold \(M^2\)). Moreover, the conformal factor \(\sigma=\sigma (x)\) is a function of \(f\), that is we have \(\sigma=\sigma (f)\). The problem of description of the conformally related Finsler metrics which are Douglas metrics for the dimension \(n\geq 3\) is also approached by the authors, by sketching a possible way to investigate this general problem.