Skew flat fibrations


Abstract in English

A fibration of ${mathbb R}^n$ by oriented copies of ${mathbb R}^p$ is called skew if no two fibers intersect nor contain parallel directions. Conditions on $p$ and $n$ for the existence of such a fibration were given by Ovsienko and Tabachnikov. A classification of smooth fibrations of ${mathbb R}^3$ by skew oriented lines was given by Salvai, in analogue with the classification of oriented great circle fibrations of $S^3$ by Gluck and Warner. We show that Salvais classification has a topological variation which generalizes to characterize all continuous fibrations of ${mathbb R}^n$ by skew oriented copies of ${mathbb R}^p$. We show that the space of fibrations of ${mathbb R}^3$ by skew oriented lines deformation retracts to the subspace of Hopf fibrations, and therefore has the homotopy type of a pair of disjoint copies of $S^2$. We discuss skew fibrations in the complex and quaternionic setting and give a necessary condition for the existence of a fibration of ${mathbb C}^n$ (${mathbb H}^n$) by skew oriented copies of ${mathbb C}^p$ (${mathbb H}^p$).

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