A Recursive Scheme of First Integrals of the Geodesic Flow of a Finsler Manifold

Willy Sarlet
2007 Symmetry, Integrability and Geometry: Methods and Applications  
We review properties of so-called special conformal Killing tensors on a Riemannian manifold (Q,g) and the way they give rise to a Poisson-Nijenhuis structure on the tangent bundle TQ. We then address the question of generalizing this concept to a Finsler space, where the metric tensor field comes from a regular Lagrangian function E, homogeneous of degree two in the fibre coordinates on TQ. It is shown that when a symmetric type (1,1) tensor field K along the tangent bundle projection τ: TQ→ Q
more » ... satisfies a differential condition which is similar to the defining relation of special conformal Killing tensors, there exists a direct recursive scheme again for first integrals of the geodesic spray. Involutivity of such integrals, unfortunately, remains an open problem.
doi:10.3842/sigma.2007.024 fatcat:ysrd4n5mifazngtzlsjzrimtli