Homogeneous Weyl connections of non-positive curvature (Q524422)

A Weyl connection \(\widehat{\nabla}\) on a Riemannian manifold \((M, \langle\cdot, \cdot\rangle_g)\) is a linear symmetric connection with conformal parallel transport, i.e., \[ \widehat{\nabla}_X Y=\nabla_X Y+\varphi(Y)X+\varphi(X) Y-\langle X, Y \rangle_{g} E, \] where \(\varphi\) is a 1-form satisfying \(\widehat{\nabla}_X \langle\cdot, \cdot\rangle_g=-2\varphi(X)\langle\cdot, \cdot\rangle_g\), \(E\) is the vector field dual to \(\varphi\) and \(\nabla\) is the \(g\)-connection. It was observed by the second author in [J. Math. Pures Appl. (9) 79, No. 10, 953--974 (2000; Zbl 0969.37017); in: Proceedings of the international congress of mathematicians, ICM 2002, Beijing, China, August 20--28, 2002. Vol. III: Invited lectures. Beijing: Higher Education Press; Singapore: World Scientific/distributor. 511--523 (2002; Zbl 1136.37325)] that Weyl connections are related to a special class of dynamical systems called Gaussian thermostats, which was introduced by \textit{W. G. Hoover} [Molecular dynamics. Berlin: Springer (1986)]. In this paper, the authors continue to study Weyl connections with non-positive sectional curvatures. There are canonical Weyl connections with this property on the Cartesian product of \(\mathbb S^1\) with any compact Riemannian manifold. Conversely, the authors show that if a homogeneous Weyl connection on a manifold, modeled on a unimodular Lie group, is non-positive in a stronger sense (stretched non-positive), then it must be locally of product type.