Extended Absolute Parallelism Geometry

In this paper, we study Absolute Parallelism (AP-) geometry on the tangent bundle $TM$ of a manifold $M$. Accordingly, all geometric objects defined in this geometry are not only functions of the positional argument $x$, but also depend on the directional argument $y$. Moreover, many new geometric objects, which have no counterpart in the classical AP-geometry, emerge in this different framework. We refer to such a geometry as an Extended Absolute Parallelism (EAP-) geometry. The building blocks of the EAP-geometry are a nonlinear connection assumed given a priori and $2n$ linearly independent vector fields (of special form) defined globally on $TM$ defining the parallelization. Four different $d$-connections are used to explore the properties of this geometry. Simple and compact formulae for the curvature tensors and the W-tensors of the four defined $d$-connections are obtained, expressed in terms of the torsion and the contortion tensors of the EAP-space. Further conditions are imposed on the canonical $d$-connection assuming that it is of Cartan type (resp. Berwald type). Important consequences of these assumptions are investigated. Finally, a special form of the canonical $d$-connection is studied under which the classical AP-geometry is recovered naturally from the EAP-geometry. Physical aspects of some of the geometric objects investigated are pointed out and possible physical implications of the EAP-space are discussed, including an outline of a generalized field theory on the tangent bundle $TM$ of $M$