Gromov-hyperbolicity and transitivity of geodesic flows in \(n\)-dimensional Finsler manifolds (Q2304651)

Finsler geometry has become an interesting and useful tool for studying the geometry of Hamiltonian dynamics. In this paper the authors investigate the transitivity of geodesic flows of compact Finsler manifolds without conjugate points. The setting is the following. Let \(M\) be a compact \(n\)-dimensional manifold with Finsler metric \(F\). The unitary tangent bundle associated with \(M\) is \(\mathcal{S}M =\{ (p, v) \in TM:F(p, v) = 1\}\). The authors' main result is as follows. If \((M,F)\) is a compact \(C^\infty\) manifold without conjugate points but having uniform visibility, then its geodesic flow \(\phi_t\): \(\mathcal{S}M \rightarrow \mathcal{S}M\) is transitive. The technical concepts of visibility and uniform visibility are special for Finsler manifolds, and they differ from the concept described by \textit{P. Eberlein} [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 167, 151--170 (1972; Zbl 0209.53304)] for Riemannian manifolds. This result parallels a prior theorem by \textit{P. Eberlein} [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 167, 151--170 (1972; Zbl 0209.53304)], which states that compact Riemannian manifolds without conjugate points whose universal coverings are visibility manifolds have topologically transitive geodesic flows. The authors claim that their proof is inspired by Eberlein's ideas, but that a rigorous extension to the Finsler framework required a considerable work. Another result from the paper characterizes the uniform visibility of the universal covering of \(\tilde{M}\) of \(M\) and its pullback \(\tilde{F}\). It says that if \((M,F)\) is a compact Finsler manifold without conjugate points, then \((\tilde{M}, \tilde{F})\) is of uniform visibility if and only if it is a Gromov-Finsler \(\delta\)-hyperbolic space and geodesic rays diverge. In addition, if \((M,F)\) is also of uniform visibility, the the fundamental group \(\pi_1(M)\) is a Gromov \(\delta\)-hyperbolic group for some \(\delta > 0\). The authors believe that their main theorem will be of interest not only as a general result in Finsler theory but it also might help in the exploration of rigidity questions for higher-dimensional Finsler geometry.