On the extremal compatible linear connection of a generalized Berwald manifold

Abstract

Generalized Berwald manifolds are Finsler manifolds admitting linear connections such that the parallel transports preserve the Finslerian length of tangent vectors (compatibi\-li\-ty condition). By the fundamental result of the theory \cite{V5} such a linear connection must be metrical with respect to the averaged Riemannian metric given by integration of the Riemann-Finsler metric on the indicatrix hypersurfaces. Therefore the linear connection (preserving the Finslerian length of tangent vectors) is uniquely determined by its torsion. If the torsion is zero then we have a classical Berwald manifold. Otherwise, the torsion is a strange data we need to express in terms of the intrinsic quantities of the Finsler manifold. In the paper we consider the extremal compatible linear connection of a generalized Berwald manifold by minimizing the pointwise length of its torsion tensor. It is a conditional extremum problem involving functions defined on a local neighbourhood of the tangent manifold. In case of a given point of the manifold, the reference element method provides that the number of the Lagrange multipliers equals to the number of the equations providing the compatibility of the linear connection to the Finslerian metric. Therefore the solution of the conditional extremum problem with a reference element can be expressed in terms of the canonical data. The solution of the conditional extremum problem independently of the reference elements can be constructed algorithmically at each point of the manifold. The pointwise solutions constitute a section of the torsion tensor bundle for testing the compatibility of the corresponding linear connection to the Finslerian metric. In other words, we have an intrinsic algorithm to check the existence of compatible linear connections on a Finsler manifold because it is equivalent to the existence of the extremal compatible linear connection.