HORIZONTAL DISTRIBUTIONS ON SPACES OF FIBERS

Abstract

Geometric methods for systems of partial differential equations and multiple integral problems in the calculus of variations lead naturally to differentiable manifolds that resemble fiber bundles but do not possess a structure group; in terms of local coordinates, π:B→M_n|(xⁱ, q^α)→(xⁱ), dim(B) = N + n, dim(M_n) = n. The standard notions of horizontal distributions, horizontal and vertical subspaces of T(B), T(B) = V(B) ⊕ H(B), horizontal lifts of curves in M_n, and horizontal and vertical dual subspaces with Λ¹(B) = V*(B) ⊕ H*(B) are shown to be well defined in B. The absence of a structure group is compensated for by an analysis based on the homogeneous ideals V and H that are generated by the canonical bases of V*(B) and H*(B), respectively. The differential system constructed from the generators of the horizontal ideal is shown to lead to a unique system of connection 1-forms and torsion 2-forms under the requirements that they have vacuous intersections with the horizontal ideal. The horizontal ideal is shown to be completely integrable if and only if the torsion 2-forms vanish throughout B, in which case the curvature 2-forms are congruent to zero mod H, and the curvature 2-forms are shown to have a vacuous intersection with H if and only if the horizontal distribution is affine. The paper concludes with a study of the mapping properties of the connection, torsion and curvature. These are significantly more general than those of a fiber bundle since the absence of a structure group allows mappings of the form 'xⁱ = φⁱ(x,q), 'q^α = φ^α (x,q).