$\newcommand{\bR}{\mathbb{R}}$ $\newcommand{\pa}{\partial}$ This questions has some nebulous roots in Morse theory. The most general version goes as follows. Fix an integer $n\geq 2$. Suppose that we have a smooth function $f$ defined on an open neighborhood $U$ of $0$ in $\bR^n$. To a smooth Riemannian metric $g$ defined on $U$ we associated the gradient $\nabla^g f$. > For which smooth functions functions $f$ is the correspondence > > $$g\mapsto \nabla^g f $$ > > injective, i.e., from the knowledge that $\nabla^{g_0} f=\nabla^{g_1} f$ > on $U$ we can conclude that $g_0=g_1$ on some neighborhood $V$ of > $0$ in $\bR^n$, $V\subset U$. Clearly, the above correspondence is not injective if $f\equiv const$, or $f(x)$ is linear in $x$. The next interesting case is when $q$ is quadratic. Suppose that $$ f(x)=q(x):=\frac{1}{2}(x_1^2+\cdots +x_n^2). $$ Denote by $g_0$ the canonical Euclidean metric on $\bR^n$ so that $$\nabla^{g_0}q =\sum_i x_i\pa_{x_i}. $$ The special case of the question goes as follows. > If $g$ is a real analytic Riemann metric defined on a neighborhood $U$ > of $0$ and $\nabla^g q(x)= \nabla^{g_0} q(x)$, $\forall x\in U$, can > we conclude that $g=g_0$ in a neighborhood of $0$? I was not able to track results of this kind in the literature, and I would appreciate any pointers.