Characterizing strong pseudoconvexity, obstructions to biholomorphisms, and Lyapunov exponents

Abstract: In this paper we consider the following question: For bounded domains with smooth boundary, can strong pseudoconvexity be characterized in terms of the intrinsic complex geometry of the domain? Our approach to answering this question is based on understanding the dynamical behavior of real geodesics in the Kobayashi metric and allows us to prove a number of results for domains with low regularity. For instance, we show that for convex domains with $C^{2,\epsilon}$ boundary strong pseudoconvexity can be characterized in terms of the behavior of the squeezing function near the boundary, the behavior of the holomorphic sectional curvature of the Bergman metric near the boundary, or any other reasonable measure of the complex geometry near the boundary. The first characterization gives a partial answer to a question of Forn{\ae}ss and Wold. As an application of these characterizations, we show that a convex domain with $C^{2,\epsilon}$ boundary which is biholomorphic to a strongly pseudoconvex domain is also strongly pseudoconvex.