Normal coordinate systems from a viewpoint of real analysis (Q5932147)

If the metric fundamental tensor \( g_{ab} \) of a pseudo-Riemannian manifold is expanded into a power series with respect to the center of a normal coordinate system then it is known that the Taylor coefficients are expressible as polynomial functions of the curvature tensor and its covariant derivatives at the center [cf. \textit{P. Günther}, Z. Angew. Math. Mech. 55, 205-210 (1975; Zbl 0324.53012) and \textit{O. Kowalski} and \textit{M. Belger}, Math. Nachr. 168, 209-225 (1994; Zbl 0829.53038)]. Similar questions arise for the contravariant metric tensor \( g^{ab} \) and several powers of \( |\det(g_{ab})|\). Inspired by this, the present paper centers around the question whether there are related objects determining analytically the metric quantities in normal coordinates. The author proposes three matrix valued functions \( {\mathcal {S,N,R}}\). Here, \( {\mathcal S} \) is essentially the transition from the normal coordinate base field to the base field obtained by transporting out parallelly the coordinate base at the center along the geodesic rays emanating from it, while \( {\mathcal N} \) comes from the Levi-Cività connection and \( {\mathcal R}\) from the curvature tensor in the parallelized base. These objects satisfy a set of PDEs corresponding to a system of ODEs along the geodesic rays. By a thorough discussion of these dependencies the author gains the main result allowing the reconstruction of the metric tensor from any of the functions \( {\mathcal {S,N,R}}\) under suitable (necessary) assumptions. In case that the data are of homogeneous polynomial type (save the zero term if any) the construction can be made explicit using e.g. Bessel functions of several orders. Also general series expansions of the solutions are derived from series expansions of the data.