Workshop

Finsler geometry uses families of Minkowski norms, instead of families of inner products, to describe geometry. This situation is entirely analogous to how Banach spaces relate to Hilbert spaces. There has been a steady modernisation of the field during the past decade. Within the last two years, several areas of Finsler geometry have experienced accelerated growth. These include Finsler spaces of constant curvature, as well as applications of Finsler methods to industrial and medical sectors. The purpose of the workshop is to assess the current state of affairs in the field, to provide a forum for technology transfer, and to chart a course for the near future. We would like to bring together a cross section of the researchers working on different aspects of Finsler geometry. There would be expository presentations that are accessible to the differential geometry community at large. There would also be impromptu discussions, among small groups, of more specialised/technical issues. Theoretical topics of the workshop tentatively include: Cartan spaces; classification of Berwald spaces; Finsler spaces of constant flag curvature; Finsler--Einstein metrics; Finslerian volumes and measures; geodesic flows; Kobayashi metrics; Lagrange spaces; metric geometry; projective invariants; rigidity theorems. Topics dealing with applications tentatively include: diffusion on Finsler manifolds; elastiplasticity and non-smooth Finsler metrics; relativistic field theories; seismology and oil exploration; simulations of normal and abnormal cellular growth.      Group photo of participants