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Prolongation on Contact Manifolds

On contact manifolds we describe a notion of (contact) finite-type for linear partial differential operators satisfying a natural condition on their leading terms. A large class of linear differential operators are of finite-type in this sense, and for any such operator we construct a partial connection on a (finite rank) vector bundle with the property that sections in the null space of the operator correspond bijectively, and via an explicit map, with sections parallel for the partial connection. It follows that the solution space is finite dimensional and bounded by the corank of the holonomy algebra of the partial connection. For finite-type operators on a parabolic contact geometry, the structure of the vector bundle, in particular its rank, can be easily determined by representation theory.