Geodesics and horizontal-path spaces in Carnot groups (Q2346445)

Consider a step-two Carnot group \(G\) with \(d\)-dimensional horizontal distribution \(\Delta\), \(l\)-dimensional second layer \(\Delta^2=[\Delta,\Delta]\), and Lie algebra \(\mathcal G=\Delta\oplus\Delta^2\). In this paper, several interesting results on the space of sub-Riemannian geodesics and on the topology of the sublevel sets of the associated energy functional \(J\) are obtained. As shown by discussing in detail the case of the \(3\)-dimensional Heisenberg group, the theory is quite different from the classical one since more complicated phenomena appear like the fact that \(J\) is not a Morse function since it has no isolated critical points in case \(p\) is a vertical point (\(p\in\exp(\Delta^2)\)). More precisely, the authors consider the set \(\Omega_p\) of horizontal paths joining the origin \(e\) and a point \(p\in G\). Given a sub-Riemannian metric on \(G\), the energy of a horizontal path \(\gamma\) is defined by \({1\over 2}\int_I |\dot{\gamma}|^2\). While for generic non-vertical points the number of geodesics joining \(e\) and \(p\) is finite (Proposition 7), when \(p\) is vertical the picture is much more involved and several results are obtained. It is proved in Theorem 9 that for a generic sub-Riemannian metric and generic \(p\) vertical, \(\Omega_p\) is a Hilbert manifold. In Section 3, the structure of geodesics in \(G\) is described in a number of results around Theorem 13. In Theorem 21, the number of critical manifolds with \(J\leq s\) is shown to be of order \(O(s^l)\) for a generic Carnot structure and generic vertical \(p\). Morse-Bott type inequalities are obtained in Theorem 26, where it is shown that the Betti number \(b(\Omega_p^s)=O(s^{l-1})\) for generic Carnot structure and vertical point \(p\). Here, \(\Omega_p^s\) is the set of horizontal paths with energy less than or equal to \(s\). This asymptotic estimate is more precise in case \(l=2\) as proved in Theorem 27. Finally, an estimate on the vanishing rate of Betti numbers, \(\max\{i: b_i(\Omega_p^s)\neq 0\}=O(s)\), is given in Corollary 25.