Siegel domains over Finsler symmetric cones (Q1982283)

This interesting contribution closes a problem which has been open for decades. The question whether a Siegel domain of the first kind \(V \oplus i \Omega\), where \(\Omega\) is a proper open cone in a real Banach space \(V\) (also known as a tube domain) is biholomorphic to a bounded symmetric domain has been considered by several researchers in different settings. For the sake of conciseness we shall avoid technical definitions. If we assume that \(V\) is finite-dimensional, classic results by Koecher and Vinberg can be applied to prove that \(V \oplus i \Omega\) is biholomorphic to a bounded symmetric domain if and only if \(\Omega\) is a linearly homogeneous self-dual cone, or equivalently, the closure \(\overline{\Omega}\) is the cone \(\{ a^2 : a\in \mathcal{A} \}\) of a formally real Jordan algebra \(\mathcal{A}\). It is further known that in this case \(\Omega\) carries the structure of a Riemannian symmetric space. In the case that \(V\) is an infinite dimensional Banach space, the problem was considered by \textit{R. Braun} et al. [Math. Z. 161, 277--290 (1978; Zbl 0385.32002)] and \textit{W. Kaup} and \textit{H. Upmeier} [Math. Z. (1978; Zbl 0352.32034)], who proved that, in this wider setting, \(V \oplus i \Omega\) is biholomorphic to a bounded symmetric domain if and only if \(\overline{\Omega} = \{a^2 : a\in \mathcal{A}\}\) in a unital JB-algebra \(\mathcal{A}\). Both in the finite dimensional case as in the case of infinite dimension, the space \(V\) is the underlying vector space of \(\mathcal{A}\). In the infinite-dimensional case, the question whether a characterization of all tube domains \(V \oplus i \Omega\) which are biholomorphic to a bounded symmetric domain in terms of the intrinsic geometric structure of \(\Omega\) remained open until now. The aforementioned results by Koecher and Vinberg prove that, in the finite-dimensional setting, the desired geometric characterization is ``\(\Omega\) is a linearly homogeneous self-dual cone''. The latter condition is simply untreatable in the general case since the concept of a self-dual cone is unavailable in infinite-dimensional Banach spaces for want of a positive definite quadratic form. In the present paper, the author employs a Finsler structure to circumvent this difficulty and provides the following intrinsic geometric characterization in terms of \(\Omega\): \(V \oplus i \Omega\) is biholomorphic to a bounded symmetric domain if and only if \(\Omega\) is a normal linearly homogeneous Finsler symmetric cone, and hence the latter condition can be viewed as an infinite-dimensional generalization of the notion of a linearly homogeneous self-dual cone.