Boundary distance, lens maps and entropy of geodesic flows of Finsler metrics (Q258896): Difference between revisions

A Finsler metric \(\varphi\) on an \(n\)-dimensional disk \(D\) is called simple if every pair of points in \(D\) is connected by a unique geodesic, smoothly depending on the points, and if the boundary is strictly convex, that is, geodesics never touch it at their interior points. Given a Finsler metric its boundary distance \(bd_\varphi\) is the restriction of the distance \(d_\varphi:D\times D\to\mathbb{R}\) to \(\partial D\times\partial D\). The geodesic flow of \(\varphi\) induces the Poincaré return map on the unit vectors transversal to the boundary \(UTD|_{\partial D}\setminus UT\partial D =U_{\mathrm{in}}\cup U_{\mathrm{out}}\). The restriction \(\beta:U_{\mathrm{in}}\to U_{\mathrm{out}}\) is called the lens map of \(\varphi\). Its Legendre dual is the dual lens map \(\sigma:U^*_{\mathrm{in}}\to U^*_{\mathrm{out}}\) (it is symplectic). The main results of the paper constitute the following three theorems. Theorem 1. Let \(\varphi\) be a simple Finsler metric on \(D\), \(f=bd_\varphi\) and \(U_0\) a neighborhood of the diagonal \(\Delta\subset \partial D\times \partial D\). Then for every function \(\tilde{f}:\partial D\times \partial D\to \mathbb{R}\) that is \(C^\infty\)-close to \(f\) and is such that \(\tilde{f}|_{U_0}=f|_{U_0}\) there exists a simple Finsler metric \(\tilde{\varphi}\) such that \(bd_{\tilde{\varphi}}=\tilde{f}\) and \(\tilde{\varphi}=\varphi\) in a neighborhood of \(\partial D\). When \(\tilde{f}\) converges to \(f\), the metric \(\tilde{\varphi}\) can be chosen converging to \(\varphi\) (in \(C^\infty\)). If \(\varphi\) is reversible and \(\tilde{f}\) symmetric, so \(\tilde{\varphi}\) can be chosen reversible too. Theorem 2. Assume that \(n\geq 3\). Let \(\varphi\) be a simple metric on \(D\) and \(\sigma\) its dual lens map. Then every sufficiently small symplectic perturbation \(\tilde{\sigma}\) of \(\sigma\) with compact support in \(U^*_{\mathrm{in}}\) is realized by the dual lens map of a simple metric \(\tilde{\varphi}\) that coincides with \(\varphi\) in some neighbourhood of \(\partial D\times \partial D\). When \(\tilde{\sigma}\) converges to \(\sigma\), the metric \(\tilde{\varphi}\) can be chosen converging to \(\varphi\) (in \(C^\infty\)). If \(\varphi\) is reversible and \(\tilde{\sigma}\) symmetric, then \(\tilde{\varphi}\) can be chosen reversible too. Theorem 3. The standard metric of \(S^4\) can be \(C^\infty\)-perturbed in the class of reversible Finsler metrics so that the geodesic flow of the resulting metric has positive metric entropy. The perturbation of the geodesic flow can be chosen confined to an arbitrarily small neighbourhood of one periodic orbit of the original flow.