On pseudo-Riemannian quartics in Finsler geometry

Abstract

Finsler geometry usually describes an extension of Riemannian geometry into a direction-dependent geometric structure. Historically, the well-known Riemann quartic length element example served as the inspiration for this construction. Surprisingly, the same quartic expression emerges as a fundamental dispersion relationcovariant Fresnel equationin solid-state electrodynamics. As a result, it is possible to conceive of the Riemann quartic length expression as a mathematical representation of a well-known physical phenomenon. This paper provides a number of Riemann quartic examples that show Finsler geometry to be overly constrictive for many applications, even when the signature space is positive definite in the Euclidean sense. The strong axioms of Finsler geometry are broken down on many more singular hypersurfaces for the spaces having an indefinite (Minkowski) signature. We suggest a more flexible definition of a Finsler structure that only has to hold for open subsets of a manifold’s tangent bundle. We demonstrate the distinctive singular hypersurfaces connected to the Riemann quartic and discuss the potential physics explanations for them. As an illustration of the pseudo-Riemannian quartic, we took into consideration the dispersion relation that appears in electromagnetic wave propagation in uniaxial crystal. Our analysis suggests that the signature of the Finsler measure may be altered for large anisotropy factors.