Hedlund-Metrics and the Stable Norm

Abstract

The real homology of a compact Riemannian manifold $M$ is naturally endowed with the stable norm. The stable norm on $H_1(M,\mathbb{R})$ arises from the Riemannian length functional by homogenization. It is difficult and interesting to decide which norms on the finite-dimensional vector space $H_1(M,\mathbb{R})$ are stable norms of a Riemannian metric on $M$. If the dimension of $M$ is at least three, I. Babenko and F. Balacheff proved in \cite{baba} that every polyhedral norm ball in $H_1(M,\mathbb{R})$, whose vertices are rational with respect to the lattice of integer classes in $H_1(M,\mathbb{R})$, is the stable norm ball of a Riemannian metric on $M$. This metric can even be chosen to be conformally equivalent to any given metric. The proof in \cite{baba} uses singular Riemannian metrics on polyhedra which are finally smoothed. Here we present an alternative construction of such metrics which remains in the geometric framework of smooth Riemannian metrics.