On the uniqueness of Hofer's geometry (Q657863)

Let \((M,\omega)\) be a closed \(2n\)-dimensional symplectic manifold, \(\text{Ham}(M,\omega)\) the group of Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms equipped with \(C^\infty\)-topology. Then its Lie algebra \({\mathcal A}\) can be identified with \[ C^\infty_0(M)= \Biggl\{f\in C^\infty(M)\,:\,\int_M f\omega^n= 0\Biggr\}. \] Let \(\|\cdot\|\) be a pseudo-norm on \({\mathcal A}\). Then the length of a path \(\alpha:[0,1]\to \text{Ham}(M,\omega)\) is defined by \[ \text{length}\{\alpha\}= \int^1_0 \|\dot\alpha\|\,dt. \] The distance between two Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms is given by \[ d(\psi,\phi)= \text{inf}_{\{\alpha\,:\,\alpha(0)= \psi, \alpha(1)= \phi\}} \text{length}\{\alpha\}. \] This distance function is bi-invariant if \(\|\cdot\|\) is invariant under the adjoint action. But whether it is degenerate or not depending on the choice of \(\|\cdot\|\). It is known that the \(L_\infty\)-norm on \({\mathcal A}\) gives rise to a genuine distance function on \(\text{Ham}(M,\omega)\), which is known as Hofer's metric [\textit{H. Hofer}, Proc. R. Soc. Edinb., Sect. A 115, No. 1--2, 25--38 (1990; Zbl 0713.58004); \textit{F. Lalonde} and \textit{D. McDuff}, Ann. Math. (2) 141, No. 2, 349--371 (1995; Zbl 0829.53025)]. In this paper, the following uniqueness theorem of Hofer's metric is proved. Corollary 1.4. For a closed symplectic manifold \((M,\omega)\), any bi-invariant Finsler pseudo-metric on \(\text{Ham}(M,\omega)\), obtained by a pseudo-norm \(\|\cdot\|\) on \({\mathcal A}\) that is continuous in the \(C^\infty\)-topology, is either identically zero or equivalent to Hofer's metric. It has been known that, if \(\|\cdot\|\) is a \(\text{Ham}(M,\omega)\)-invariant norm on \({\mathcal A}\) such that \(\|\cdot\|\leq C\|\cdot\|_\infty\) for some constant \(C\), but the two norms are not equivalent, then the associated pseudo-distance \(d\) on \(\text{Ham}(M,\omega)\) vanishes identically [\textit{Y. Ostrover} and \textit{R. Wagner}, Int. Math. Res. Not. 2005, No. 35, 2123--2141 (2005; Zbl 1097.58006)]. Hence to prove Corollary 1.4, it is sufficient to prove Theorem 1.3. Let \((M,\omega)\) be a closed symplectic manifold. Any \(\text{Ham}(M, \omega)\)-invariant pseudo-norm \(\|\cdot\|\) on \({\mathcal A}\) that is continuous in the \(C^\infty\)-topology is dominated from above by the \(L_\infty\)-norm. To prove Theorem1.3, \(C^\infty(M)\) is used instead of \({\mathcal A}\), because an invariant pseudo-norm \(\|\cdot\|\) on \({\mathcal A}\) induces an invariant pseudo-norm \(\|\cdot\|'\), \[ \| f\|'= \Biggl\| f-{1\over\text{Vol}(M)} \int_M f \omega^n\Biggr\| \] on \(C^\infty(M)\). By a partition of unity, the proof of Theorem 1.3 is reduced to the proof of Theorem 1.3 for \(\text{Ham}(W,\omega)\)-invariant pseudo-norms on \(C^\infty(W)\), where \(W= (-L, L)^{2n}\). Let \({\mathcal F}\) be a finite collection in \(C^\infty_c(M)\) and let \[ \| f\|_{{\mathcal L}_{\mathcal F}}= \inf\Biggl\{\sum |c_{i,k}|\,:\, f= \sum_{i,k} c_{i,k} \Phi^*_{i,k} f_i,\Phi^*_{i,k}\in \text{Ham}(W,\omega), f_i\in{\mathcal F}\Biggr\}. \] Then a pseudo-norm \[ \| f\|_{{\mathcal F},\max}= \text{inf}\Biggl\{\liminf_{i\to\infty}\,\| f_i\|_{{\mathcal L}_{\mathcal F}}\Biggr\}, \] where the infimum is taken over all subsequences \(\{f_i\}\), such that \(\| f_i\|_{{\mathcal L}_{\mathcal F}}\) is defined, and which converge to \(f\) in \(C^\infty\)-topology. It is shown that there is a finite collection \({\mathcal F}\) in \(C^\infty_c(W)\) such that \(\|\cdot\|_{{\mathcal F},\max}\) is a genuine norm on \(C^\infty_c(W)\) and \(\|\cdot\|_{{\mathcal F}\max}\leq C\|\cdot\|_\infty\) for some \(C\) (Theorem 3.4). It is also shown that any \(\text{Ham}_c(W,\omega)\)-invariant pseudo-norm \(\|\cdot\|\) on \(C^\infty_c(W)\) which is continuous in the \(C^\infty\)-topology satisfies \(\|\cdot\|\leq C\|\cdot \|_{{\mathcal F},\max}\) for some absolute constant \(C\) (Lemma 3.3). Hence the proof of Theorem 1.3 is reduced to the proof of existence of \({\mathcal F}\) used in Theorem 3.4. If \(n\geq 2\), the proof of Theorem 3.4 is essentially reduced to showing that the theorem is true for product functions \[ f=\prod^n_{i=1} f_i(q_i,p_i) \] by using a Fourier series argument and construction of a partition of unity which gives a convenient local expression of \(f\) (\S3.2). The construction of \({\mathcal F}\) for \(n=2\) needs hard analysis and is the most essential part of this paper. The authors note that Theorem 1.3 is also valid in the case of an open connected symplectic manifold of finite volume. In an appendix, it is shown that smooth paths of \(\text{Ham}(M, \omega)\) have finite length if and only if the pseudo-norm \(\|\cdot\|\) is continuous in the \(C^\infty\)-topology (Proposition 5.1).