We prove exponential growth rate of contractible closed geodesics for an arbitrary bumpy metric on manifolds of the form X#Y, where the fundamental group of X has a subgroup of finite index at least 3 and Y is simply connected and not a homotopy sphere.
In this paper, we prove that for every irreversible Finsler $n$-dimensional real projective space $(\mathbb{R}P^n,F)$ with reversibility $λ$ and flag curvature $K$ satisfying $\frac{16}{9}\left(\fracλ{1+λ}\right)^2<K\le 1$ with $λ<3$, there exist at least $n-1$ non-contractible closed geodesics. In addition, if the metric $F$ is bumpy with $\frac{64}{25}\left(\fracλ{1+λ}\right)^2<K\le 1$ and $λ<\frac{5}{3}$, then there exist at least $2[\frac{n+1}{2}]$ non-contractible closed geodesics, which is the optimal lower bound due to Katok's example. The main ingredients of the proofs are the Fadell-R…
In this paper, we establish first the resonance identity for non-contractible homologically visible prime closed geodesics on Finsler $n$-dimensional real projective space $(\mathbb{R}P^n,F)$ when there exist only finitely many distinct non-contractible closed geodesics on $(\mathbb{R}P^n,F)$, where the integer $n\geq2$. Then as an application of this resonance identity, we prove the existence of at least two distinct non-contractible closed geodesics on $\mathbb{R}P^{n}$ with a bumpy and irreversible Finsler metric. Together with two previous results on bumpy and reversible Finsler metrics in…
Let $M=S^n/ Γ$ and $h$ be a nontrivial element of finite order $p$ in $π_1(M)$, where the integer $n, p\geq2$, $Γ$ is a finite abelian group which acts freely and isometrically on the $n$-sphere and therefore $M$ is diffeomorphic to a compact space form. In this paper, we prove that for every irreversible Finsler compact space form $(M,F)$ with reversibility $λ$ and flag curvature $K$ satisfying \[ \frac{4p^2}{(p+1)^2} \big(\fracλ{λ+1} \big)^2 < K \leq 1,\;\;λ< \frac{p+1}{p-1}, \] there exist at least $n-1$ non-contractible closed geodesics of class $[h]$. In addition, if the metric $F$ is bum…
Let $M=S^n/ Γ$ and $h$ be a nontrivial element of finite order $p$ in $π_1(M)$, where the integer $n\geq2$, $Γ$ is a finite group which acts freely and isometrically on the $n$-sphere and therefore $M$ is diffeomorphic to a compact space form. In this paper, we establish first the resonance identity for non-contractible homologically visible minimal closed geodesics of the class $[h]$ on every Finsler compact space form $(M, F)$ when there exist only finitely many distinct non-contractible closed geodesics of the class $[h]$ on $(M, F)$. Then as an application of this resonance identity, we pr…
Let $M=S^{2n+1}/ Γ$, $Γ$ is a finite group which acts freely and isometrically on the $(2n+1)$-sphere and therefore $M$ is diffeomorphic to a compact space form. In this paper, we first investigate Katok's famous example about irreversible Finsler metrics on the spheres to study the topological structure of the contractible component of the free loop space on the compact space form $M$, then we apply the result to establish the resonance identity for homologically visible contractible minimal closed geodesics on every Finsler compact space form $(M, F)$ when there exist only finitely many dist…
We calculate the rational equivariant cohomology of the spaces of non-contractible loops in compact space forms and show how to apply these calculations for proving the existence of closed geodesics.
This note proves that any locally extremal non-self-conjugate geodesic loop in a Riemannian manifold is a closed geodesic. As a consequence, any complete and non-contractible Riemannian manifold with diverging injectivity radii along diverging sequences and without points conjugate to themselves, possesses a minimizing closed geodesic.
We show that if K: P \to R is an autonomous Hamiltonian on a symplectic manifold (P,Ω) which attains 0 as a Morse-Bott nondegenerate minimum along a symplectic submanifold M, and if c_1(TP)|_M vanishes in real cohomology, then the Hamiltonian flow of K has contractible periodic orbits with bounded period on all sufficiently small energy levels. As a special case, if the geodesic flow on the cotangent bundle of M is twisted by a symplectic magnetic field form, then the resulting flow has contractible periodic orbits on all low energy levels. These results were proven by Ginzburg and Gürel when …
We show that a small neighborhood of a closed symplectic submanifold in a geometrically bounded aspherical symplectic manifold has non-vanishing symplectic homology. As a consequence, we establish the existence of contractible closed characteristics on any thickening of the boundary of the neighborhood. When applied to twisted geodesic flows on compact symplectically aspherical manifolds, this implies the existence of contractible periodic orbits for a dense set of low energy values.
In this paper, we study the regularity of topological entropy, as a function on the space of Riemannian metrics endowed with the $C^0$ topology. We establish several instances of entropy robustness (persistence of entropy non-vanishing after small $C^0$ perturbations). A large part of this paper is dedicated to metrics on the 2-dimensional torus, for which our main results are that metrics with a contractible closed geodesic have robust entropy (thus generalizing and quantifying a result of Denvir-Mackay) and that metrics with robust positive entropy on the torus are $C^{\infty}$ generic. More…
The closed string field theory minimal-area problem asks for the conformal metric of least area on a Riemann surface with the condition that all non-contractible closed curves have length at least 2π. Through every point in such a metric there is a geodesic that saturates the length condition, and saturating geodesics in a given homotopy class form a band. The extremal metric is unknown when bands of geodesics cross, as it happens for surfaces of non-zero genus. We use recently proposed convex programs to numerically find the minimal-area metric on the square torus with a square boundary, for …
Let $X_0$ be an infinite genus hyperbolic surface (whose boundary components, if any, are closed geodesics or punctures) which has an upper bounded pants decomposition. The length spectrum Teichmüller space $T_{ls}(X_0)$ consists of all surfaces $X$ homeomorphic to $X_0$ such that the ratios of the corresponding simple closed geodesics are uniformly bounded from below and from above. Alessandrini, Liu, Papadopoulos and Su described the Fenchel-Nielsen coordinates for $T_{ls}(X_0)$ and using these coordinates they proved that $T_{ls}(X_0)$ is path connected. We use the Fenchel-Nielsen coordinat…
We show that the existence of noncontractible periodic orbits for compactly supported time-dependent Hamiltonian on the disk cotangent bundle of a Finsler manifold provided that the Hamiltonian is sufficiently large over the zero section. We generalize the BPS capacities and earlier constructions of Weber (2006 Duke Math. J. 133, 527-568) and other authors Biran et al (2003 Duke Math. J. 119, 65-118) to the Finsler setting. We then obtain a number of applications including: (1) generalizing the main theorem of Xue (2017 J. Symplectic Geom. 15, 905-936) to the Lie group setting, (2) preservatio…