Structure of second-order symmetric Lorentzian manifolds
, that is to say, Lorentzian manifolds with vanishing second derivative of the curvature tensor , are characterized by several geometric properties, and explicitly presented. Locally, they are a product where each factor is uniquely determined as follows: is a Riemannian symmetric space and is either a constant-curvature Lorentzian space or a definite type of plane wave generalizing the Cahen–Wallach family. In the proper case (i.e., at some point), the curvature tensor...