A topological splitting theorem for sub-Riemannian manifolds

We prove an analogue of the Cheeger–Gromoll splitting theorem for sub-Riemannian manifolds with the measure contraction property instead of the nonnegativity of the Ricci curvature. If such a sub-Riemannian manifold contains a straight line, then the manifold splits diffeomorphically, where the splitting is not necessarily isometric. We prove that such a sub-Riemannian manifold containing a straight line cannot split isometrically under some typical condition in sub-Riemannian geometry. Heisenberg groups are such examples.     

Sub-Riemannian Curvature in Contact Geometry

We compare different notions of curvature on contact sub-Riemannian manifolds. In particular, we introduce canonical curvatures as the coefficients of the sub-Riemannian Jacobi equation. The main result is that all these coefficients are encoded in the asymptotic expansion of the horizontal derivatives of the sub-Riemannian distance. We explicitly compute their expressions in terms of the standard tensors of contact geometry. As an application of these results, we obtain a sub-Riemannian version of the Bonnet–Myers theorem that applies to any contact manifold.     

Mass transportation on sub-Riemannian structures of rank two in dimension four

This paper is concerned with the study of the Monge optimal transport problem in sub-Riemannian manifolds where the cost is given by the square of the sub-Riemannian distance. Our aim is to extend previous results on existence and uniqueness of optimal transport maps to cases of sub-Riemannian structures which admit many singular minimizing geodesics. We treat here the case of sub-Riemannian structures of rank two in dimension four.     

Symmetries of flat rank two distributions and sub-Riemannian structures

Flat sub-Riemannian structures are local approximations -- nilpotentizations -- of sub-Riemannian structures at regular points. Lie algebras of symmetries of flat maximal growth distributions and sub-Riemannian structures of rank two are computed in dimensions 3, 4, and 5.

     

On a Step 2(k + 1) sub-Riemannian manifold

We compute the sub-Riemannian distance for a Step 2(k + 1) sub-Riemannian manifold from the origin to any given point. We characterize the number of sub-Riemannian geodesics between the origin and any other point.     

On fat sub-Riemannian symmetric spaces in codimension three

A sub-Riemannian manifold is a differentiable manifold together with a smooth distribution which is equipped with a Riemannian metric. In this paper we attempt to study sub-Riemannian symmetric spaces (i.e., homogeneous sub-Riemannian manifolds admitting an involutive sub-Riemannian isometry at all points which is a central symmetry when restricted to the distribution) where the associated distribution is a codimension three fat distribution. We obtain a restricted classification theorem in dimension seven and we also construct a class of examples of quaternionic type in varying dimension.     

The polynomial sub-Riemannian differentiability of some Hölder mappings of Carnot groups

The polynomial sub-Riemannian differentiability is established for the large classes of Hölder mappings in the sub-Riemannian sense, namely, the classes of smooth mappings, their graphs, and the graphs of Lipschitz mappings in the sub-Riemannian sense defined on nilpotent graded groups. We also describe some special bases that carry the sub-Riemannian structure of the preimage to the image.     

A Coarea Formula for Smooth Contact Mappings of Carnot–Carathéodory Spaces

We prove the coarea formula for sufficiently smooth contact mappings of Carnot manifolds to Carnot–Carathéodory spaces. In particular, we investigate level surfaces of these mappings, and compare Riemannian and sub-Riemannian measures on them. Our main tool is the sharp asymptotic behavior of the Riemannian measure of the intersection of a tangent plane to a level surface and a sub-Riemannian ball. This calculation in particular implies that the sub-Riemannian measure of the set of characteristic points (i.e., the points at which the sub-Riemannian differential is degenerate) equals zero on almost every level set.     

Volume and distance comparison theorems for sub-Riemannian manifolds

In this paper we study global distance estimates and uniform local volume estimates in a large class of sub-Riemannian manifolds. Our main device is the generalized curvature dimension inequality introduced by the first and the third author in [3] and its use to obtain sharp inequalities for solutions of the sub-Riemannian heat equation. As a consequence, we obtain a Gromov type precompactness theorem for the class of sub-Riemannian manifolds whose generalized Ricci curvature is bounded from below in the sense of [3].     

Polynomial sub-Riemannian differentiability on Carnot groups

The polynomial sub-Riemannian differentiability of classes of mappings of Carnot groups and graphs is proved. Examples of polynomial sub-Riemannian differentials preserving Hausdorff dimension are given.     

Heat content and horizontal mean curvature on the Heisenberg group

We identify the short time asymptotics of the sub-Riemannian heat content for a smoothly bounded domain in the first Heisenberg group. Our asymptotic formula generalizes prior work by van den Berg–Le Gall and van den Berg–Gilkey to the sub-Riemannian context, and identifies the first few coe?cients in the sub-Riemannian heat content in terms of the horizontal perimeter and the total horizontal mean curvature of the boundary. The proof is probabilistic, and relies on a characterization of the heat content in terms of Brownian motion.     

Liouville nonintegrability of sub-Riemannian problems on free Carnot groups of step 4

One of the main approaches to the study of the Carnot–Carathéodory metrics is the Mitchell–Gromov nilpotent approximation theorem, which reduces the consideration of a neighborhood of a regular point to the study of the left-invariant sub-Riemannian problem on the corresponding Carnot group. A detailed analysis of sub-Riemannian extremals is usually based on the explicit integration of the Hamiltonian system of Pontryagin’s maximum principle. In this paper, the Liouville nonintegrability of this system for left-invariant sub-Riemannian problems on free Carnot groups of step 4 and higher is proved.     

A bound for diameter of arithmetic hyperbolic orbifolds

Weyl (Zur Infinitisimalgeometrie: Einordnung der projektiven und der konformen Auffasung, Nachrichten von der K. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Mathematisch-Physikalische Klasse, Göttinger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Göttingen, 1921) demonstrated that for a connected manifold of dimension greater than 1, if two Riemannian metrics are conformal and have the same geodesics up to a reparametrization, then one metric is a constant scaling of the other one. In the present paper we investigate the analogous property for sub-Riemannian metrics. In particular, we prove that the analogous statement, called the Weyl rigidity, holds either in real analytic category for all sub-Riemannian metrics on distributions with a specific property of their complex abnormal extremals, called minimal order, or in smooth category for all distributions such that all complex abnormal extremals of their nilpotent approximations are of minimal order. This also shows, in real analytic category, the genericity of distributions for which all sub-Riemannian metrics are Weyl rigid and genericity of Weyl rigid sub-Riemannian metrics on a given bracket generating distributions. Finally, this allows us to get analogous genericity results for projective rigidity of sub-Riemannian metrics, i.e., when the only sub-Riemannian metric having the same sub-Riemannian geodesics, up to a reparametrization, with a given one, is a constant scaling of this given one. This is the improvement of our results on the genericity of weaker rigidity properties proved in recent paper (Jean et al. in Geom Dedic 203(1):279–319, 2019).

     

Bounds for the first eigenvalue of the horizontal Laplacian in positively curved sub-Riemannian manifolds

We establish lower bounds for the first non-zero eigenvalue for the natural geometric sub-elliptic Laplacian operator defined on sub-Riemannian manifolds of step 2 that satisfy a positive curvature condition. The methods are very general and can be applied even when the sub-Riemannian geometry has considerable torsion.     

Homogeneous Sub-Riemannian Geodesics on a Group of Motions of the Plane

Differential Equations - Homogeneous sub-Riemannian geodesics are described for the standard sub-Riemannian structure on the group $${\mathrm {SE}}(2)$$ of proper motions of the plane. It is shown...     

Riemannian and Sub-Riemannian Geodesic Flows

We show that the geodesic flows of a sub-Riemannian metric and that of a Riemannian extension commute if and only if the extended metric is parallel with respect to a certain connection. This result allows us to describe the sub-Riemannian geodesic flow on totally geodesic Riemannian foliations in terms of the Riemannian geodesic flow. Also, given a submersion \(\pi :M \rightarrow B\), we describe when the projections of a Riemannian and a sub-Riemannian geodesic flow in M coincide.     

Quasiregular Mappings on Sub-Riemannian Manifolds

We study mappings on sub-Riemannian manifolds which are quasiregular with respect to the Carnot–Carathéodory distances and discuss several related notions. On H-type Carnot groups, quasiregular mappings have been introduced earlier using an analytic definition, but so far, a good working definition in the same spirit is not available in the setting of general sub-Riemannian manifolds. In the present paper we adopt therefore a metric rather than analytic viewpoint. As a first main result, we prove that the sub-Riemannian lens space admits nontrivial uniformly quasiregular (UQR) mappings, that is, quasiregular mappings with a uniform bound on the distortion of all the iterates. In doing so, we also obtain new examples of UQR maps on the standard sub-Riemannian spheres. The proof is based on a method for building conformal traps on sub-Riemannian spheres using quasiconformal flows, and an adaptation of this approach to quotients of spheres. One may then study the quasiregular semigroup generated by a UQR mapping. In the second part of the paper we follow Tukia to prove the existence of a measurable conformal structure which is invariant under such a semigroup. Here, the conformal structure is specified only on the horizontal distribution, and the pullback is defined using the Margulis–Mostow derivative (which generalizes the classical and Pansu derivatives).     

Complete stable CMC surfaces with empty singular set in Sasakian sub-Riemannian 3-manifolds

For constant mean curvature surfaces of class C ² immersed inside Sasakian sub-Riemannian 3-manifolds we obtain a formula for the second derivative of the area which involves horizontal analytical terms, the Webster scalar curvature of the ambient manifold, and the extrinsic shape of the surface. Then we prove classification results for complete surfaces with empty singular set which are stable, i.e., second order minima of the area under a volume constraint, inside the 3-dimensional sub-Riemannian space forms. In the first Heisenberg group we show that such a surface is a vertical plane. In the sub-Riemannian hyperbolic 3-space we give an upper bound for the mean curvature of such surfaces, and we characterize the horocylinders as the unique ones with squared mean curvature 1. Finally we deduce that any complete surface with empty singular set in the sub-Riemannian 3-sphere is unstable.     

Intrinsic complements of equiregular sub-Riemannian manifolds

Under a nondegeneracy condition, we show that an equiregular sub-Riemannian manifold of step size \(r\) admits a canonical, \(V\) -rigid complement defined from the sub-Riemannian data that is preserved the by action of sub-Riemannian isometries. We explore how the existence of such a complement relates to results from the literature and study the step size 2 case in more detail.