Differential invariants for cubic integrals of geodesic flows on surfaces (Q974397)

Let \(S\) be a surface with local coordinates \(\{x^{1},x^{2} \}\) and momenta \(\{p_{x}, p_{y} \}\) for the cotangent bundle \(T*S\). Let \(g\) be a Riemannian metric on \(S\), and let \(z\) denote the local coordinate function of the complex structure on \(S\) determined by \(g\). Let \(F : T*S \rightarrow \mathbb{R}\) be a function invariant under the geodesic flow that is a cubic homogeneous polynomial of the form \(F(x,y,p_{x}, p_{y}) = a_{0}(x,y) p_{x}^{3} + a_{1}(x,y) p_{x}^{2} p_{y} + a_{2}(x,y) p_{x} p_{y}^{2} + a_{3}(x,y) p_{y}^{3}\). The function \(F\) determines a Birkhoff-Kolokoltsov holomorphic (3,0) tensor \(A(z)\) given by \(\{(a_{0}(x,y) - a_{2}(x,y) ) + i~ (a_{1}(x,y) - a_{3}(x,y)) \} \frac{\partial}{\partial z} \otimes \frac{\partial}{\partial z} \otimes \frac{\partial}{\partial z}\). In this article the authors consider the following question: If one is given a metric \(g\) on \(S\) and a holomorphic (3,0) tensor \(A(z)\), then under what conditions does there exists a cubic function \(F : T*S \rightarrow \mathbb{R}\) that is invariant under the geodesic flow and determines \(A(z)\) in the manner above? The authors provide a complete algorithmic answer to this question, and in a generic case they provide an explicit formula for the cubic function \(F\) when the compatibilty conditions for the existence of \(F\) are satisfied. The authors also provide an historical overview of this problem and others related to it.