Curvature properties of Weyl geometries
We examine relations between geometry and the associated curvature decompositions in Weyl geometry.
arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to U. Simon.
We examine relations between geometry and the associated curvature decompositions in Weyl geometry.
We present an algebraic investigation of generalized and equiaffine curvature tensors in a given pseudo-Euclidean vector space and study different orthogonal, irreducible decompositions in analogy to the known decomposition of algebraic curvature tensors. We apply the decomposition results to characterize geometric properties of Codazzi structures and relative hypersurfaces; particular emphasis is on projectively flat structures.
One says that a smooth manifold M is a pseudo-Riemannian manifold of signature (p,q) if the tangent bundle TM is equipped with a smooth non-degenerate symmetric inner product g of signature (p,q). Similarly one says that M is an affine manifold if TM is equipped with a torsion free connection. One says g is Osserman if the eigenvalues of the Jacobi operator are constant on the pseudo-sphere bundles of unit timelike and spacelike vectors. We extend this concept from the pseudo-Riemannian to the affine setting to define the notion of a projectively Osserman manifold. This notion is the focus of the paper. We establish some basic results concerning projectively Osserman manifolds and exhibit examples of this structure which arise in several different geometrical contexts.
We use curvature decompositions to construct generating sets for the space of algebraic curvature tensors and for the space of tensors with the same symmetries as those of a torsion free, Ricci symmetric connection; the latter naturally appear in relative hypersurface theory.
We study when the Jacobi operator associated to the Weyl conformal curvature tensor has constant eigenvalues on the bundle of unit spacelike or timelike tangent vectors. This leads to questions in the conformal geometry of pseudo-Riemannian manifolds which generalize the Osserman conjecture to this setting. We also study similar questions related to the skew-symmetric curvature operator defined by the Weyl conformal curvature tensor.