Existence of length minimizers in homotopy classes of Lipschitz paths in \mathbb{H}^1

Publication date 2 June 2023

Abstract: We show that for any purely 2-unrectifiable metric space

M

, for example the Heisenberg group

m a t h b b H^{1}

equipped with the Carnot-Carath'{e}odory metric, every homotopy class

[a l p h a]

of Lipschitz paths contains a length minimizing representative

a l p h a_{i} n f t y

that is unique up to reparametrization. The length minimizer

a l p h a_{i} n f t y

is the core of the homotopy class

[a l p h a]

in the sense that the image of

a l p h a_{i} n f t y

is a subset of the image of any path contained in

[a l p h a]

. Furthermore, the existence of length minimizers guarantees that only the trivial class in the first Lipschitz homotopy group of

M

with a base point can be represented by a loop within each neighborhood of the base point. The results detailed here will be used to define and prove properties of a universal Lipschitz path space over

m a t h b b H^{1}

in a subsequent paper.

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