Special Symmetric Two-tensors, Equivalent Dynamical Systems, Cofactor and Bi-cofactor Systems

A general analysis of special classes of symmetric two-tensor on Riemannian manifolds is provided. These tensors arise in connection with special topics in differential geometry and analytical mechanics: geodesic equivalence and separation of variables. It is shown that they play an important role in the theory of correspondent (or equivalent) dynamical systems of Levi-Civita. By applying some new developments of this theory, it is shown that the recent notions of cofactor and cofactor-pair systems arise in a natural way, as non-Lagrangian systems having a Lagrangian equivalent. This circumstance extends the Hamiltonian methods, including the separation of variables of the Hamilton–Jacobi equation, to a special class of nonconservative systems. In this extension the case of indefinite metrics, may occur. Hence, it is shown that also pseudo-Riemannian geometry plays an important role also in classical mechanics.Research sponsored by the Dept. of Mathematics, University of Turin, and by INDAM-GNFM.