Geometry of diffeomorphism groups, complete integrability and geometric statistics (Q352112)

Let \((M,g)\) be a compact \(n\)-dimensional Riemannian manifold without boundary and let \(\mathrm{Diff}(M)\) be the group of all diffeomorphisms of \(M\). Its tangent space \(T\eta \mathrm{Diff}(M)\) at a point \(\eta\) consists of the maps \(X_\eta: M \to TM\) with \(X_\eta(x)\in T_\eta(x)M\). Define the \(L^2\)-metric on \(\mathrm{Diff}(M)\) by assigning to each tangent space the inner product \((X_\eta,Y_\eta)_\eta = \int_M g_{\eta(x)}\left(X_\eta(x), Y_\eta(x)\right)d\mu\), where \(d\mu\) denotes the Riemannian volume form on \(M\). Let \(\mathrm{Diff}_\mu(M)\) be the subgroup of volume-preserving diffeomorphisms. The restriction of the \(L^2\)-metric to this subgroup is right-invariant and of particular importance in hydrodynamics. V.~Arnold showed that geodesics in \(\mathrm{Diff}_\mu(M)\) correspond to motions of an ideal fluid in \(M\). The reviewer has shown that the diffeomorphism group \(\mathrm{Diff}(M)\) is an appropriate configuration space for the hydromechanics of an ideal barotropic fluid. In this paper the geometry of the space \(\mathrm{Dens}(M)\) of smooth volume elements on \(M\) defining the same orientation on \(M\) as \(\mu\) and having a fixed total volume is studied. The main results of this paper concern the geometry of degenerate right-invariant \(\dot{H}^1\) Riemannian metrics on the full diffeomorphism group \(\mathrm{Diff}(M)\) and the properties of solutions of the associated geodesic equations. The \(\dot{H}^1\) metric is given at the identity diffeomorphism by \(\langle\langle X,Y\rangle\rangle = b\int_M \text{div}X\text{div} Yd\mu\) for some \(b>0\). It descends to a non-degenerate Riemannian metric on the homogeneous space of right cosets (densities) \(\mathrm{Dens}(M)=\mathrm{Diff}(M)/\mathrm{Diff}_\mu(M)\). The authors construct an explicit isometry from this space \(\mathrm{Dens}(M)\) to (a subset of) an infinite-dimensional sphere and show that the associated Euler-Arnold equation is a completely integrable system in any space dimension. They also prove that its smooth solutions break down in finite time. Furthermore, the authors show that the \(\dot{H}^1\)-metric induces the Fisher-Rao (information) metric on the space of probability distributions, and thus its Riemannian distance is the spherical version of the Hellinger distance. They compare it to the Wasserstein distance in optimal transport which is induced by an \(L^2\)-metric on \(\mathrm{Diff}(M)\). The \(\dot{H}^1\)-geometry introduced in this paper can be seen as an infinite-dimensional version of the geometric theory of statistical manifolds.