On canonical almost geodesic mappings which preserve the Weyl projective tensor (Q682306)

From MaRDI portal
scientific article
Language Label Description Also known as
English
On canonical almost geodesic mappings which preserve the Weyl projective tensor
scientific article

    Statements

    On canonical almost geodesic mappings which preserve the Weyl projective tensor (English)
    0 references
    0 references
    0 references
    0 references
    14 February 2018
    0 references
    Let \(A\) be an \(n\)-dimensional manifold with an affine connection \(\nabla\). A curve \(\gamma\) in \(A\) is \textit{almost geodesic} if parallel transporting tangent vectors to \(\gamma\) along \(\gamma\) itself, one spans a distribution along \(\gamma\) of rank at most \(2\). If \(\overline A\) is another manifold with affine connection, a diffeomorphism \(f : A \to \overline A\) is \textit{almost geodesic} if it transforms geodesics into almost geodesics. Let \(\Gamma_{ij}^k\) and \(\overline \Gamma{}_{ij}^k\) be the connection symbols on \(A\) and \(\overline A\) respectively. Then \(\Gamma_{ij}^k - f^\ast \overline \Gamma{}_{ij}^k\) are the components of a \((2,1)\)-tensor \(P\) on \(A\), which is symmetric in the lower indices, and almost geodesic maps can be characterized in terms of \(P\). The authors consider a special class of almost geodesic maps: those such that \(P^h_{i(j,k)} + P^l_{i(j}P^h_{k)l} = \delta^h_{(j}a_{k)i}\) for some symmetric tensor \(a\), where a comma denotes covariant derivative with respect to \(\nabla\). They show that these conditions are equivalent to a system of PDEs in Cauchy form for \((P,a)\), whose solution depends on no more that \(n(n+1)^2/2\) parameters. They also show that such almost geodesic maps preserve the Weyl projective curvature tensor. As a corollary they obtain that if \(A\) is projectively Euclidean or equiaffine, and \(f : A \to \overline A\) is an almost geodesic map of their type, then \(\overline A\) is also projectively Euclidean or equiaffine. They conclude with an example.
    0 references
    canonical almost geodesic mapping of first type
    0 references
    space with affine connection
    0 references
    Weyl projective curvature tensor
    0 references

    Identifiers