Horizontal holonomy for affine manifolds

Abstract: In this paper, we consider a smooth connected finite-dimensional manifold

M

, an affine connection

a b l a

with holonomy group

H^{a b l a}

and

D e l t a

a smooth completely non integrable distribution. We define the

D e l t a

-horizontal holonomy group

H_{D}^{; a b l a} e l t a

as the subgroup of

H^{a b l a}

obtained by

a b l a

-parallel transporting frames only along loops tangent to

D e l t a

. We first set elementary properties of

H_{D}^{; a b l a} e l t a

and show how to study it using the rolling formalism (cite{ChitourKokkonen}). In particular, it is shown that

H_{D}^{; a b l a} e l t a

is a Lie group. Moreover, we study an explicit example where

M

is a free step-two homogeneous Carnot group and

a b l a

is the Levi-Civita connection associated to a Riemannian metric on

M

, and show that in this particular case the connected component of the identity of

H_{D}^{; a b l a} e l t a

is compact and strictly included in

H^{a b l a}

.

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