Topological Conjugacy of Real Projective Flows

Abstract

In this paper we prove the following topological classification result for flows on real projective space induced by linear flows on Euclidean space: Two flows on the projective space P(V) of a finite-dimensional real vector space V, induced by endomorphisms A and B of V, are topologically conjugate if and only if the Jordan structures of A and B coincide except for the real parts of the eigenvalues whose values may differ but whose order and multiplicities must agree. Our proof is mainly based on ideas of Kuiper who considered the discrete-time analogue of this classification problem. We also correct a mistake in Kuiper's proof.