On the Pontrjagin classes of spray manifolds

Abstract

The characterization of projectively flat Finsler metrics on an open subset in $R^n$ is the Hilbert’s fourth problem in the regular case. Locally projectively flat Finsler manifolds form an important class of Finsler manifolds. Every Finsler metric induces a spray on the manifold via geodesics. Therefore, it is a natural problem to investigate the geometric and topological properties of manifolds equipped with a spray. In this paper, we study the Pontrjagin classes of a manifold equipped with a locally projectively flat spray and show that such manifold must have zero Pontrjagin classes.