On the General Problem of Structure-Preserving Submersions

Abstract

In this paper we give a general geometrical framework for working with problems that can be described as a structure-preserving submersion defined on a suitable space with a geometrical structure. We give many examples of how to formulate familiar problems arsing from physics in our framework. Then, as an application of this framework we derive the new results of generalisations of the classical Herglotz-Noether theorem to arbitrary dimensions and to all conformally-flat ambient spaces. Possible further directions for research are also discussed.