scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1421229

Local differential geometry of Finsler spaces and generalizations (areal metrics) (53B40) Global differential geometry of Finsler spaces and generalizations (areal metrics) (53C60)

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Let \(M\) be a differentiable manifold of dimension \(n\) and \(TM\) be its tangent bundle. A local coordinate system \((x^i)\) of \(M\) provides \(TM\) with a canonical coordinate system \((x^i,y^i)\). Suppose \(TM\) admits a positive-valued differentiable function \(F\) satisfying the postulates: (i) \(F\) is homogeneous of degree \(1\) in the \(y\)'s. (ii) the Hessian of \(F\) is regular, i.e., the matrix \((g_{ij})\) is regular, where \(g_{ij}(x,y)= {1\over 2} \partial^2F/ \partial y^i\partial y^j\), \((i,j=1, \dots,n)\). The pair \((M,F)\) was coined as Finsler space by J. M. Taylor in honor of P. Finsler who started its study in 1928. As was proved later by Alexandrov, \((M,F)\) is a topological space and with the \(g_{ij}\) as metric it is turned into a manifold structure in the sense of Hopf-Rinow, which gave rise to the Finsler geometry. However, unlike the case of general linear connections, all the connections for \((M,F)\) are nonlinear, that is, they depend not only on the position \(x\)'s but on the direction of tangent vector \(y\)'s. The representative Finsler connections that appeared until two decades after the Second World War are the Cartan-, Berwald-, and Chern-connections. This paper is engaged with the succinct introduction of modern activities in the West and East for laying the more solid foundation to \((M,F)\)-manifold structure itself and to the theory of nonlinear connections, all of which are, needless to say, the results of daunting heavy tensorial calculus made by numerous geometers or their study groups in 1980-1998. For the entire collection see [Zbl 0931.00037].

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