scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1779181

Publication date 12 August 2002

almost Hermitian structures almost Kählerian space higher order Lagrange space k-osculator bundle k-spray Lagrange space osculator bundle symplectic structures

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Local differential geometry of Hermitian and Kählerian structures (53B35) Local differential geometry of Finsler spaces and generalizations (areal metrics) (53B40) Applications of local differential geometry to the sciences (53B50)

Review text

The main goal of this paper is to define the theory of higher order differential geometry. This is achieved in the third part of the article introducing the category of HOG (Higher Order Differential Geometry). Since one of the objects of this category is the geometry of higher order Lagrange spaces, the author first gives an introduction of the theory of Lagrange spaces, which, as he emphasizes, is not the same as the geometrical theory of Lagrangian Dynamics. A Lagrange space is a pair \( L^{n}=(M,L)\) formed by a real differentiable manifold \(M\), of dimension \(n\) and a Lagrangian \(L\), defined on the total space of the tangent bundle \( (TM,\pi ,M)\) such that \(L\) is a regular Lagrangian and the tensor \(g_{ij}(x, \dot x)=\frac{1}{2}\frac{\partial ^{2}L}{\partial \dot x ^{i}\partial \dot x^{j}}\) has a constant signature on \(\widetilde{TM }=TM\backslash \{0\}\), (\(x^{i}\) are the local coordinates of \(x\in M\), and \((x^i,x^j)\) are the local coordinates of a point \((x,\dot x)\in TM\), \(i,j=1,\dots,n\)). The author gives some examples of such spaces. In the first part of the article he explains the geometry of these spaces explaining also how it can be derived from an almost Kählerian space. In the second part he introduces Lagrange spaces of order \(k\geq1\). Let \((\text{Osc}^{k}M,\pi ,M)\) be the \(k\)-osculator bundle over the manifold \(M\). If \(u=(x,y^{(1)},...,y^{(k)})\) is a point of the local space \(E=\text{Osc}^{k}M\), then \((x,y^{(1)i},...,y^{(k)i})\) are its canonical coordinates where \(\pi (u)=(x^{i}).\) If \(\;c:t\in [ 0,1]\rightarrow (x^i(t))\in U\subset M\) is a smooth curve, then the extension \(\widetilde{c} :t\in [ 0,1]\rightarrow \pi ^{-1}(U)\subset E\) is given by \( x^{i}=x^{i}(t),\) \(y^{(1)i}=\frac{dx^{i}}{dt}(t)\),... \(y^{(k)i}=\frac{1}{k!} \frac{d^{k}x^{i}}{dt^{k}}(t)\), \(t\in [ 0,1]\). The mapping \(O:x\in M\rightarrow (x,0,...0)\in E=\text{Osc}^{k}M\), is the null section of the canonical projection \(\pi :E\rightarrow M\). Let \(\widetilde{E}=\text{Osc}^{k}M\backslash \{0\}\). A differentiable Lagrangian of order \(k\) is a mapping \(L:E\rightarrow \mathbb{R}\), differentiable on \(\widetilde{E}\) and continuous on the null section. A Lagrange space of order \(k\) is a pair \(L^{(k)n}=(M,L)\) formed by a real \(n\)-dimensional differentiable manifold \(M\) and a differentiable Lagrangian \(L\) of order \(k\), such that 1) \ \(rank\left\| g_{i,j}(x,y^{(1)},...,y^{(k)})\right\| =n\), where \(g_{i,j}=\frac{1}{2}\frac{\partial ^{2}L}{\partial y^{(k)i}\partial y^{(k)j}}\) and 2) the tensor \( g_{i,j}\) has constant signature on \(\widetilde{E}.\) The second part of the article ends with a result giving a geometrical model of \(L^{(k)n}\). In the last part of the article the author introduces the concept of higher order differential geometry introducing the category HOG whose objects are the \(k\)-osculator bundles \((\text{Osc}^{k}M,\pi ,M)\). For the entire collection see [Zbl 0933.00024].

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