Action spectrum and Hofer's distance between Lagrangian submanifolds. (Q1397836)

The author is interested in the study of the \textit{H. Hofer} metric in the space \({\mathcal L}(M)\) of Hamiltonian deformations of zero section \(O_M\) in cotangent bundle \(T^*M\) over a compact smooth manifold \(M\) [Proc. R. Soc. Edinb., Sect. A 115, 25--38 (1990; Zbl 0713.58004)]. He studies the minimizing property of geodesics in \({\mathcal L}(M)\). Consider a path \(L_t:= \phi^H_t(L_0)\), where \(\phi^H_t\) is a Hamiltonian isotopy generated by a smooth compactly supported Hamiltonian function \(H: [0,1]\times T^*M\to \mathbb{R}\). The length of the path \(\{L_t\}\) is defined by \[ \text{length\,}(\{L_t\}):= \inf\int^1_0 \Biggl(\max_x\,H(t,x)- \min_x\, H(x,t)\Biggr)\,dt, \] where the infimum is taken over all \(H\) such that \(\phi^H_t(L_0)= L_t\) and \(\max_x\), \(\min_x\) are taken over \(x\in\bigcup_{t\in [0,1]} L_t\). For \(L_0,L_1\in{\mathcal L}(M)\) the Hofer distance \(d(L_0, L_1)\) is defined by \[ d(L_0, L_1):= \inf_H\,\Biggl\{\int^1_0 \Biggl(\max_x\,H(t,x)- \min_x\, H(x,t)\Biggr)\,dt\mid \phi^H_1(L_0)= L_1\Biggr\}. \] In his previous paper [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 129, 1843--1851 (2001; Zbl 0978.53123)] the author proved for Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms in \(\mathbb{R}^{2n}\), that every \(L\in{\mathcal L}(M)\) has a flat \(C^1\)-neighborhood. More precisely, let \({\mathcal G}\) is a \(C^1\)-neighborhood of the zero section \(O_M\) such that if \(L\in{\mathcal G}\) then \(L= \text{Graph}(dS)\) for some smooth function \(S\) on \(M\). In [loc. cit.] the author proved that for \(L_i= \text{Graph}(dS_i)\in{\mathcal G}\), \(i\in [0,1]\), \[ d(L_0, L_1)=\| S_1- S_0\|:= \max(S_1- S_0)- \min(S_1- S_0). \] As a corollary, the author obtained that a path \(\{L_t\}\) in \({\mathcal L}(M)\) is a geodesic if and only if it is locally (with respect to \(t\)) quasi-autonomous. In this paper for the study of the length-minimizing properties of the geodesics, the author considers only the paths starting at \(O_M\) (since the group \(\text{Ham}(T^*M)\) of compactly supported Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms acts transitively on \({\mathcal L}(M)\) and since Hofer's metric is invariant) and assumes that \(L_0= O_M\). Then he obtains the following two new theorems which are analogous with some results of \textit{M. Bialy} and \textit{L. Polterovich} [Duke Math. J. 76, 273--292 (1994; Zbl 0819.58006)] and, respectively, \textit{K. F. Siburg} [Calc. Var. Partial Differ. Equ. 3, 299--309 (1995; Zbl 0828.58028)]. Theorem 2. Let \(L: [0,1]\to{\mathcal L}\), \(t\to L_t\) be a strongly quasi-autonomous path. Suppose that its bifurcation diagram is simple. Then \(\text{length}(\{L_t\})= d(L_0,L_1)\). Theorem 3. Let \(L: [0,1]\to{\mathcal L}\), \(t\to L_t\) be an admissible path. Then \(\text{length}(\{L_t\})= d(L_0, L_1)\). Corollary 4. If \(\Gamma\) denotes the natural inclusion \(\Gamma:\Hom(\mathbb{R}^{2n})\to{\mathcal L}(\mathbb{S}^{2n})\), then \(\Gamma^*\text{length}\neq \text{length}_H\); \(\Gamma^* d= d_H\). The author observes that the conditions of Theorem 2 are only sufficient, but not necessary for geodesics to be minimal.