Covariant jets of a connection and higher order curvature tensors (Q2662743)

The concept of a \(k\)-th order curvature tensor is introduced. For \(k=1\), this tensor is equivalent to the classical Riemann tensor. Next, the authors introduce the notion of a covariant jet of a connection as an equivalence class of jets modulo gauge transformations. In the main result, they show that curvature tensors up to order \(k\) contain the same information as the Riemann tensor and its covariant derivatives up to order \(k-1\). This approach leads to applications in geometric formulations of higher-order variational problems and in general relativity theory.