Topological contact dynamics III: uniqueness of the topological Hamiltonian and C^0-rigidity of the geodesic flow

Abstract

We prove that a topological contact isotopy uniquely defines a topological contact Hamiltonian. Combined with previous results from [MS11], this generalizes the classical one-to-one correspondence between smooth contact isotopies and their generating smooth contact Hamiltonians and conformal factors to the group of topological contact dynamical systems. Applications of this generalized correspondence include C^0-rigidity of smooth contact Hamiltonians, a transformation law for topological contact dynamical systems, and C^0-rigidity of the geodesic flows of Riemannian manifolds.