Diffeomorphisms of pseudo-Riemannian manifolds and the values of the curvature tensor on degenerate planes

Abstract

A diffeomorphism of pseudo-Riemannian manifolds is called sectional curvature preserving if it preserves the sectional curvature of all the nondegenerate 2-planes. We consider a similar condition for degenerate 2-planes and we prove that the diffeomorphism is conformal (when the condition is fulfilled for weakly degenerate planes) or an isometry (when the condition is fulfilled for strongly degenerate 2-planes).