Ordinary differential equations in affine geometry

Abstract

The method of qualitative analysis is used, as applied to a class of fourth order, nonlinear ordinary differential equations, in order to classify, both locally and globally, two classes of hypersurfaces of decomposable type in affine geometry: those with constant unimodular affine mean curvature L , and those with constant Riemannian scalar curvature R. This allows to provide a large number of new examples of hypersurfaces in affine geometry.