The infinitesimal symmetry algebra of any Cartan geometry has maximum dimension realized by the flat model, but often this dimension drops significantly when considering non-flat geometries, so a gap phenomenon arises. For general (regular, normal) parabolic geometries of type ( G , P ) ${(G,P)}$ , we use Tanaka theory to derive a universal upper bound on the submaximal symmetry dimension. We use Kostant’s version of the Bott–Borel–Weil Theorem to show that this bound is in fact sharp in almost all complex and split-real cases by exhibiting (abstract) models. We explicitly compute all submaximal symmetry dimensions whenGis any complex or split-real simple Lie group.

Any smooth geodesic flow is locally Liouville integrable with smooth integrals. We show that generically this fails if we require, in addition, that the integrals are polynomial (or, more generally, analytic) in momenta. Consequently we obtain that a generic real-analytic metric does not admit, even locally, a real-analytic integral.

We prove that the existence of a dispersionless Lax pair with spectral parameter for a nondegenerate hyperbolic second order partial differential equation (PDE) is equivalent to the canonical conformal structure defined by the symbol being Einstein–Weyl on any solution in 3D, and self-dual on any solution in 4D. The first main ingredient in the proof is a characteristic property for dispersionless Lax pairs. The second is the projective behaviour of the Lax pair with respect to the spectral parameter. Both are established for nondegenerate determined systems of PDEs of any order. Thus our main result applies more generally to any such PDE system whose characteristic variety is a quadric hypersurface.