The diameter of the symplectomorphism group is infinite (Q2276815)

The article is connected with the work by \textit{A. I. Shnirel'man} [Math. USSR, Sb. 56, No.1, 79-105 (1987); translation from Mat. Sb., Nov. Ser. 128(170), No.1, 82-109 (1985; see the review above)] where it was shown that the group of volume-preserving diffeomorphisms of the cube in \({\mathbb{R}}^ 3\) has finite diameter with respect to a natural \(L^ 2\)- metric on the group. Here the authors consider the group of symplectic diffeomorphisms and show that the \(L^ 2\)-diameter of this group is infinite for any compact exact symplectic manifold with boundary. The case of volume-preserving diffeomorphisms of any simply-connected Riemannian manifold is also under consideration: it is shown that in this case the \(L^ 2\)-diameter can become infinite if the fundamental group is not trivial.