Rolling against a sphere: the non-transitive case (Q345272)

The main subject of study in this important work is the control system of a Riemannian manifold \(M\) of dimension \(n\) rolling on the sphere \(S^n\), a space form of positive curvature without slipping and twisting, aiming at relating the controllability of the rolling system with the geometric properties of the rolling manifold \(M\). This work establishes some fundamental techniques and tools for investigation of this subject, and gives fruitful results. It is shown that the holonomy group of the rolling connection is isomorphic to the Riemannian holonomy of the Riemannian cone \(C(M)\) over the original manifold \(M\). Moreover, the holonomy group of the rolling connection completely determines the controllability of the rolling system. The interesting example of Heisenberg group has its rolling holonomy group isomorphic to the unitary group. Symplectic holonomy groups and their relation to the 3-Sasakian structure of the rolling manifold \(M\) are also discussed.