English

A Conformal Co-Symplectic Structure on the Space of Pseudo-Riemannian Geodesics

Differential Geometry 2025-10-08 v1

Abstract

The classical construction of the symplectic structure on the space of geodesic trajectories via Hamiltonian reduction fails in the pseudo-Riemannian setting due to a dimensional mismatch created by the null geodesics. This paper proposes a new, unified approach. We first construct the space of all geodesic trajectories Gtraj\mathcal{G}_\text{traj} directly as the quotient of the space of geodesics curves Gcurv\mathcal{G}_\text{curv} by the affine reparametrization group. The analysis of the orbits of this group action reveals a key geometric distribution. To describe this distribution globally, we introduce a canonical object, the "conformal co-symplectic structure" σ\sigma, defined by pushing forward the conformal class of the inverse ω1\omega^{-1} of the original symplectic form ω\omega. We prove that the image of this structure coincides with the geometric distribution identified previously. On the subspace of time-like and space-like geodesics, this structure is non-degenerate and defines a conformal class of symplectic forms. On the null subspace, its image is a codimension-11 distribution that we prove is the canonical contact structure on the space of light rays.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2510.05155,
  title  = {A Conformal Co-Symplectic Structure on the Space of Pseudo-Riemannian Geodesics},
  author = {Patrick Iglesias-Zemmour},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.05155},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

This construction comes from an unpublished work, first formulated in a private letter, which was then cited in the literature, and has been incorporated into a forthcoming book, "The Geometry of Motion". The purpose of this article is to provide the first official and independent publication of this method. A link to the scanned copy of the original letter is provided as reference