Connection (affine bundle)
Let
be an affine bundle modelled over a vector bundle
. A connection
on
is called the affine connection if it as a section
of the jet bundle
of
is an affine bundle morphism over
. In particular, this is the case of an affine connection on the tangent bundle
of a smooth manifold
.
With respect to affine bundle coordinates
on
, an affine connection
on
is given by the tangent-valued connection form
An affine bundle is a fiber bundle with a general affine structure group
of affine transformations of its typical fiber
of dimension
. Therefore, an affine connection is associated to a principal connection. It always exists.
For any affine connection
, the corresponding linear derivative
of an affine morphism
defines a
unique linear connection on a vector bundle
. With respect to linear bundle
coordinates
on
, this connection reads
Since every vector bundle is an affine bundle, any linear connection on
a vector bundle also is an affine connection.
If
is a vector bundle, both an affine connection
and an associated linear connection
are
connections on the same vector bundle
, and their
difference is a basic soldering form on
. Thus, every affine
connection on a vector bundle
is a sum of a linear
connection and a basic soldering form on
.