Adiabatic limit and connections in Finsler geometry (Q376090)

Let \((M, F)\) be a Finsler manifold and \(\pi:SM\to M\) be the projective sphere bundle of \(M\). Then the Finsler structure \(F\) on \(M\) defines naturally a Euclidean structure on the pull-back vector bundle \(\pi^*TM\to SM\) and a Sasaki-type Riemannian metric on \(M\). In this paper, the authors consider \(SM\) as foliated by projective spheres. Accordingly, the well-known Bott connection in the foliation theory becomes a connection on \(H(SM)\), the horizontal tangent bundle. It has been proved that the Bott connection turns out to be the Chern connection under the identification of \(H(SM)\) and \(\pi^*TM\). Consequently, the symmetrization of the Bott connection becomes the Cartan connection. Following \textit{K. Liu} and \textit{W. Zhang} [Contemp. Math. 279, 195--208 (2001; Zbl 0987.53022)], the relations between the Chern connection, the Cartan connection and the Levi-Civita connection associated to the Sasaki-type Riemannian metric are also established through an adiabatic limit process. A special Chern-Simons transgressed term of the Chern and Cartan connections are considered and the explicit formula of this term is given in dimension two. Inspired by this formula, a Chern-Simons type form of \((M, F)\) is defined, which is a non-Riemannian geometric invariant of the Finsler manifold. Some conformal properties of this form are discussed also.