Quadratic Killing tensors on symmetric spaces which are not generated by Killing vector fields

Vladimir S. Matveev, Yuri Nikolayevsky

Published 2023-12-27Version 1

Every Killing tensor field on the space of constant curvature and on the complex projective space can be decomposed into the sum of symmetric tensor products of Killing vector fields (equivalently, every polynomial in the velocities integral of the geodesic flow is a polynomial in the linear integrals). This fact led to the natural question on whether this property is shared by Killing tensor fields on all Riemannian symmetric spaces. We answer this question in the negative by constructing explicit examples of quadratic Killing tensor fields which are not quadratic forms in the Killing vector fields on the quaternionic projective spaces $\mathbb{H} P^n, n \ge 3$, and on the Cayley projective plane $\mathbb{O} P^2$.