English

Real Bers embedding on the line: Fisher-Rao linearization, Schwarzian curvature, and scattering coordinates

Differential Geometry 2026-02-27 v2 Analysis of PDEs Functional Analysis

Abstract

We develop a real-analytic counterpart of the Bers embedding for the Fr\'echet Lie group \Diff(R)\Diff^{-\infty}(\R) of decay-controlled diffeomorphisms of the line, and establish its connection to LpL^p Fisher-Rao geometry on densities. For p[1,)p\in[1,\infty), the pp-root map φp(φ1/p1)\varphi\mapsto p(\varphi'^{1/p}-1) isometrically linearizes the homogeneous W˙1,p\dot W^{1,p} Finsler metric on \Diff(R)\Diff^{-\infty}(\R), yielding explicit geodesics and a canonical flat connection whose Eulerian geodesic equation is the generalized Hunter-Saxton equation; for p=p=\infty, logarithmic coordinates φlogφ\varphi\mapsto\log\varphi' provide a global isometry and the Schwarzian derivative emerges as the projective curvature. We construct a real Bers map β ⁣:\Diff(R)/\Aff(R)W,1(R)\beta^{-\infty}\colon\Diff^{-\infty}(\R)/\Aff(\R)\to W^{\infty,1}(\R) via this Schwarzian, prove it is a Fr\'echet-smooth injective immersion whose linearization admits a tame right inverse given by an explicit Volterra operator, and characterize its image through Sturm-Liouville spectral theory. We introduce an LpL^p-Schwarzian family SpS_p that interpolates between affine and projective cocycles, establish full asymptotic expansions as pp\to\infty in Fr\'echet and Orlicz-Sobolev scales, and extend the Bers embedding to Orlicz diffeomorphism groups. Through the Jacobian correspondence, these structures transfer to a manifold of densities asymptotic to Lebesgue measure, where the nonlinear Eulerian transport reduces to a pointwise Riccati law and the Schwarzian becomes the score curvature governing Fisher information. The compact-manifold LpL^p Fisher-Rao linearization of Bauer, Bruveris, Harms, and Michor is recalled as a guiding framework.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.07373,
  title  = {Real Bers embedding on the line: Fisher-Rao linearization, Schwarzian curvature, and scattering coordinates},
  author = {Hy Lam},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.07373},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

48 pages, 1 diagram. Part I of a two-part work; Part II constructs the Koopman-equivariant statistical bundle