The Kobayashi metric on complex spaces (Q1914731)

A program is carried out in the paper under review to extend the notion of Kobayashi-Royden pseudometric to complex analytic spaces and to prove the analogue of the fact that the Kobayashi pseudodistance is the integrated form of the Kobayashi-Royden pseudometric. Given a connected complex analytic space \(X\), a family \(\{K^k_X\}\) of Kobayashi infinitesimal pseudometrics, depending on the positive integer \(k\), is introduced, acting on the bundle of jets of order \(k\) of holomorphic curves in \(X\). (When \(X\) is a smooth complex manifold, then \(K^1_X\) is the usual Kobayashi-Royden pseudometric.) It is shown that the Kobayashi pseudodistance is the integrated form of \(K^k_X\).