The center map of an affine immersion (Q867475)

Considering an equiaffine immersion \(f \colon M \rightarrow {\mathbb R}^{n+1}\) the center map of \(f\) is defined as the tangential projection of the position vector parallel to the equiaffine normal of \(f\). Thus the center map is constant iff \(f\) is a proper affine hypersphere. The authors prove that in the case of an immersion \(f \colon M \rightarrow {\mathbb R}^{3}\) with definite centroaffine metric and regular center map \(c\) the immersion \(c\) is centroaffinely congruent to the immersion \(f\) if the centroaffine Tchebychev operator vanishes identically. The nondegenerate centroaffine surfaces in \({\mathbb R}^{3}\) with vanishing centroaffine Tchebychev operator were studied by \textit{H. L. Liu} and \textit{C. P. Wang} [Result. Math. 27, No.~1--2, 77--92 (1995; Zbl 0836.53006)]. Conversely the authors prove that if \(f \colon M \rightarrow {\mathbb R}^{n+1}\) is a centroaffine immersion with center map \(c\) centroaffinely congruent to \(f\), then the centroaffine Tchebychev operator vanishes identically. Within equiaffine differential geometry equiaffine immersions \(f \colon M \rightarrow {\mathbb R}^{n+1}\) with center map \(c\) congruent to \(f\) are characterized in terms of the eigenvalues of the equiaffine shapeoperator. In the case of a surface \(f \colon M \rightarrow {\mathbb R}^{3}\) with definite equiaffine metric the authors give a complete classification. The solutions are immersions with flat equiaffine metric and projectively flat equiaffinely induced connection (c.f. \textit{C. I. Lee, L. Vrancken}, [J. Geom. 70, No.1-2, 85-100 (2001; Zbl 1028.53011)]).