Conformal Killing tensors and their Killing scales

Abstract: We address the problem of how to characterise when a rank-two conformal Killing tensor is the trace-free part of a Killing tensor for a metric in the conformal class. We call such a metric a Killing scale. Our approach is via differential prolongation using conformally invariant tractor calculus. First, we show that there is a useful partial prolongation of the conformal Killing equation to a simplified equation for sections of some tractor bundle. We then use this partial prolongation to provide such an invariant characterisation in terms of the scale tractor and this partial prolongation. This captures invariantly the relevant Bertrand--Darboux equation. We show that Einstein Killing scales have a special place in the theory. On conformally flat manifolds, we give the full prolongation of the conformally Killing equation to a conformally invariant connection on a tractor bundle. Using this, we provide a characterisation of (non-scalar flat) Einstein Killing scales by an algebraic equation for the scale tractors corresponding to such metrics. This also provides an algebraic description of the linear subspace of conformal Killing tensors that are compatible with a given Einstein Killing scale. For completeness and to introduce the main ideas, we also study analogous questions for conformal Killing vectors.