Topological affine planes with affine connections (Q4673580)

The real affine, projective and hyperbolic plane are incidence geometries with lines that can be defined as the geodesics of a suitable Riemannian metric on the point space. There are lots of non-desarguesian examples of topological geometries with point spaces that are \(2\)-dimensional manifolds. However, examples where the lines are defined by a Riemannian metric, or at least an affine connection, seem to be rare. In fact, the author has shown [Arch. Math. 79, No. 4, 317--320 (2002; Zbl 1022.51012)] that a non-classical compact projective plane never has lines defined by a Riemannian metric. All \(2\)-dimensional affine planes with collineation groups of dimension at least~\(3\) have been determined explicitly, cf. Chapter~3 of [\textit{H. Salzmann} et al., Compact projective planes (Walter de Gruyter \& Co., Berlin) (1996; Zbl 0851.51003)]: there are the families of Moulton planes, skew parabola planes, planes over cartesian fields, and skew hyperbolic planes. In the paper under review, the author studies affine planes with \(3\)-dimensional group, and asks for affine connections that define the lines as geodesics. This approach excludes the skew hyperbolic planes, where no line of the projective plane is invariant under the full group of automorphisms. The author shows that none of the skew parabola planes (except for the classical one) does admit an affine connection that defines its lines. The analogous result for the family of planes over cartesian fields has been obtained in the author's dissertation [Darstellung zweidimensionaler stabiler Ebenen durch affine Zusammenhänge und Riemannsche Metriken (Braunschweig: Univ. Braunschweig, Fachbereich Mathematik und Informatik) (2000; Zbl 0977.53029)]. The members of the last remaining class are planes derived from projective hulls of Moulton planes (as introduced in [\textit{F. R. Moulton}, Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 3, 192--195 (1902; JFM 33.0497.04)]). Here it is crucial to use as the line at infinity the one that is fixed by all collineations of the projective hull, as in [\textit{D. Betten}, J. Geom. 2, 107--114 (1972; Zbl 0236.50016)]. The author constructs affine connections having the lines of these affine Moulton planes as their geodesics. However, the universal fixed point (corresponding to the point at infinity for the horizontal lines in Moulton's description) forms a singularity for these affine connections. The author also gives examples to show that some (but not all) of these connections can be described by Riemannian metrics.