Naturally reductive homogeneous Finsler spaces

Abstract

In this paper, we study naturally reductive Finsler metrics. We first give a sufficient and necessary condition for a Finsler metric to be naturally reductive with respect to certain transitive group of isometries. Then we study in detail the left invariant naturally reductive metrics on compact Lie groups and give a method to construct the non-Riemannian ones. Further, we give a classification of left invariant naturally reductive metrics on nilpotent Lie groups. Finally, we give a classification of all the naturally reductive Finsler spaces of dimension less or qual to 4. As applications, we obtain some rigidity theorems about naturally reductive Finsler metrics. Namely, any left invariant non-symmetric naturally reductive Finsler metric on a compact simple Lie group or an indecomposable nilpotent Lie group must be Riemannian. On the other hand, we provide a very convenient method to construct non-symmetric Berwald spaces which are neither Riemannian nor locally Minkowskian, a kind of spaces which are sought after in the book by Bao et al. (An introduction to Riemann–Finsler geometry, GTM 200, 2000).