[Math] ny difference between a flat manifold and an affine space

affine-geometrymanifoldsriemannian-geometry

What is the difference, if any, between a flat manifold (in which the Riemann tensor vanished identically) and an affine space?

Best Answer

A Riemmanian manifold is called flat if its curvature vanishes everywhere. However, this does not mean that this is is an affine space. It merely means (roughly) that locally it "is like an Euclidean space."

Examples of flat manifolds include circles (1-dim), cyclinders (2-dim), the Möbius strip (2-dim) and various other things.

Yet, let me add into the direction of your idea that the universal cover of a complete flat manifold is indeed an Euclidean space.

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