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

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.