On the extremality of Hofer's metric on the group of Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms

Abstract

Let M be a closed symplectic manifold, and let | | be a norm on the space of all smooth functions on M, which are zero-mean normalized with respect to the canonical volume form. We show that if | | is dominated from above by the L-Infinity-norm, and | | is invariant under the action of Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms, then it is also invariant under all volume preserving diffeomorphisms. We also prove that if | | is, additionally, not equivalent to the L-Infinity-norm, then the induced Finsler metric on the group of Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms on M vanishes identically.