Geodesic Webs of Hypersurfaces

Abstract

In the present paper we study geometric structures associated with webs of hypersurfaces. We prove that with any geodesic (n + 2)-web on an n-dimensional manifold there is naturally associated a unique projective structure and, provide that one of web foliations is pointed, there is also associated a unique affine structure. The projective structure can be chosen by the claim that the leaves of all web foliations are totally geodesic, and affine structure by an additional claim that one of web functions is affine. These structures allow us to determine differential invariants of geodesic webs and give geometrically clear answers to some classical problems of the web theory such as the web linearization and the Gronwall theorem.