Shun-ichi Amari, Nihat Ay

Paper #: 15-10-038

A divergence function defines a Riemannian metric g and dually coupled affine connections ∇ and ∇ with respect to it in a manifold M. When M is dually flat, that is flat with respect to ∇ and ∇, a canonical divergence is known, which is uniquely determined from (M,g,∇,∇). We propose a natural definition of a canonical divergence for a general, not necessarily flat, M by using the geodesic integration of the inverse exponential map. The new definition of a canonical divergence reduces to the known canonical divergence in the case of dual flatness. Finally, we show that the integrability of the inverse exponential map implies the geodesic projection property.

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