Dynamics of Hilbert nonexpansive maps

Abstract

In his work on the foundations of geometry, David Hilbert observed that a formula which appeared in works by Klein gives rise to a complete metric on any bounded convex domain. Some decades later, Garrett Birkhoff and Hans Samelson noticed that this metric has interesting applications, when considering certain maps of convex cones that contract the metric. Such situations have since arisen in many contexts, pure and applied, and could be called nonlinear Perron–Frobenius theory. This note centers around one dynamical aspect of this theory.