On differentiable manifolds with degenerate metrics

Abstract

A metric on a differentiable manifold induces a bilinear form on the tangent space at each point of the manifold. The set of tangent vectors orthogonal, with respect to this bilinear form, to the whole tangent space is a vector subspace of the tangent space: the metric is called non-degenerate or degenerate at the point according as the subspace is or is not empty. This paper is concerned with the geometry of manifolds having everywhere degenerate metrics.