The \(S\)-curvature of homogeneous Randers spaces (Q1001999)

This paper studies the S-curvature of homogeneous Randers spaces. A Randers space is a deformation of a Riemannian space \((M,a)\) by a linear 1-form \(\beta\) such that \(a(\beta,\beta)<1\). The classical literature concerning Randers spaces is a very well developed field of modern Finsler geometry. However, the majority of concepts are described in standard local coordinates. The main novelty of the present paper is that it gives not only a characterization of the S-curvature, but also it describes many important geometrical objects without making use of local coordinates. The main result of the paper is the formula for S-curvature of a homogeneous Randers space (theorem 3.1) in coordinates free language. This leads to some interesting characterizations of Randers spaces of Douglas and Berwald types. The paper extends several classical results on homogeneous Riemannian manifolds to the more general case of Randers homogeneous manifolds proving that a serious further investigation of the curvature related geometrical properties of these geometrical structures would be very interesting.