Rational integrals of the second degree of two-dimensional geodesic equations (Q515189)

The paper under review is devoted to the problem of finding the geodesics on two-dimensional manifolds. Viewed as a Hamiltonian system in which the Riemannian metric plays the role of the Hamiltonian function one needs one additional first integral for proving its complete integrability. By making appropriate guesses about the form of this integral the above problem is reduced to an overdetermined system. It is possible however to find some compatibility conditions which guarantee that this system is solvable. This scheme is traced for a few general choices of the Riemannian metric and the form of the second integral. No explicit example of the proposed method applied to the very end is presented.