Möbius transformations and the configuration space of a Hilbert snake (Q896927)

A Hilbert snake is a continuous piecewise \(C^1\) curve in a Hilbert space, which is parametrized by arclength and starts at the origin. The controllability problem for Hilbert snakes consists of finding a piecewise \(C^1\) curve in the ``configuration space'' of snakes joining an initial snake \(u_0\) to a final snake \(u_1\), which is tangent to a natural distribution (the complement to the kernel of the end map). This problem was previously studied by the first and second named authors in [Ann. Fac. Sci. Toulouse, Math. (6) 22, No. 3, 525--557 (2013; Zbl 1316.58007)]. The paper under review provides a simplified proof of the results in the latter, using the action of the Möbius group of the unit sphere in a Hilbert space and its sub-Riemannian structure.