Subriemannian geodesics in the Grushin plane (Q692345)

The present paper is part of a long-lasting program carried out by the first author, among others, to compute explicitly normal sub-Riemannian geodesics in different cases of interest. The main contribution of this article is a complete analysis of these curves for the case of the so-called Grushin plane of step \(k+1\). Let \(k\) be a positive integer. The Grushin plane of step \(k+1\) is the singular Riemannian manifold \(({\mathbb R}^2,g)\), where \(g\) is the metric determined by declaring \[ X=\frac{\partial}{\partial x},\quad Y=x^k\frac{\partial}{\partial y} \] to be unit length vector fields. The associated sum-of-squares operator is the Grushin operator \[ \Delta_k=\frac12\frac{\partial^2}{\partial x^2}+\frac12\,x^{2k}\frac{\partial^2}{\partial y^2}, \] which is a well-known example of a hypoelliptic operator which is not elliptic. The sub-Riemannian geodesics in the Grushin plane are the projections to the \((x,y)\)-plane of the solutions of the Hamiltonian system associated to the Hamiltonian \[ H(x,y,\xi,\eta)=\frac12\big(\xi^2+x^{2k}\eta^2\big). \] The main theorem in the article under review is: { Theorem 2.} For any two points \(P(x_0,y_0)\) and \(Q(x_1,y_0)\) on the same horizontal line \(y=y_0\), there is a single geodesic connecting them. If \(y_0\neq y_1\), there are infinitely many geodesics joining \(P(0,y_0)\) and \(Q(0,y_1)\). Assuming that \(x_1\neq0\), there is only a finite number of geodesics joining \(P(x_0,y_0)\) and \(Q(x_1,y_1)\).