On Sprays of Scalar Curvature and Metrizability

Guojun Yang

Published 2022-05-24Version 1

Every Finsler metric naturally induces a spray but not so for the converse. The notion for sprays of scalar (resp. isotropic) curvature has been known as a generalization for Finsler metrics of scalar (resp. isotropic) flag curvature. In this paper, a new notion, sprays of constant curvature, is introduced and especially it shows that a spray of isotropic curvature is not necessarily of constant curvature even in dimension $n\ge3$. Further, complete conditions are given for sprays of isotropic (resp. constant) curvature to be Finsler-metrizabile. As applications of such a result, the local structure is determined for locally projectively flat Berwald sprays of isotropic (resp. constant) curvature which are Finsler-metrizable, and some more sprays of isotropic curvature are discussed for their metrizability. Besides, the metrizability problem is also investigated for sprays of scalar curvature under certain curvature conditions.