Variational aspects of the geodesics problem in sub-Riemannian geometry

DOI10.1016/S0393-0440(01)00011-0MaRDI QIDQ5947295zbMATH OpenOpenAlexWikidataFDO

Authors Paolo Piccione, Daniel V. Tausk

Publication date 12 January 2003

Published in Journal of Geometry and Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/math/9911215

zbMATH Keywords

critical pointgeodesicssub-Riemannian action functionalsub-Riemannian geometryvariational calculus

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Sub-Riemannian geometry (53C17) Variational problems in applications to the theory of geodesics (problems in one independent variable) (58E10)

Abstract: We study the local geometry of the space of horizontal curves with endpoints freely varying in two given submanifolds $mathcalP$ and $mathcalQ$ of a manifold $mathcalM$ endowed with a distribution $mathcalDsubsetTM$. We give a different proof, that holds in a more general context, of a result by Bismut (Large Deviations and the Malliavin Calculus, Birkhauser, 1984) stating that the normal extremizers that are not abnormal are critical points of the sub-Riemannian action functional. We use the Lagrangian multipliers method in a Hilbert manifold setting, which leads to a characterization of the abnormal extremizers (critical points of the endpoint map) as curves where the linear constraint fails to be regular. Finally, we describe a modification of a result by Liu and Sussmann that shows the global distance minimizing property of sufficiently small portions of normal extremizers between a point and a submanifold.

Review text

A sub-Riemannian manifold is a differentiable manifold of dimension \(n\) with a distribution of constant rank carrying a Riemannian metric. A curve is called \textit{horizontal,} if it is everywhere tangent to the distribution. For a horizontal curve the \textit{length} is defined. In this paper a variational theory for the extremals of the length functional is developed. In particular it is shown that a regular curve joining two fixed submanifolds is a critical point of the sub-Riemannian action functional if and only if it is a normal geodesic. This generalizes a result of \textit{J.-M. Bismut} [Large Deviations and the Malliavin Calculus, Birkhäuser (1984; Zbl 0537.35003), Th. 1.17] whose proof is given in the context of the Malliavin calculus.

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Cites work

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(32)

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• A connection theoretic approach to sub-Riemannian geometry.
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• Variational problems in Riemannian geometry. Bubbles, scans and geometric flows
• Geodesics in the Heisenberg group \(H ^{n }\) with a Lorentzian metric
• Geodesics in the Engel group with a sub-Lorentzian metric -- the space-like case
• Abnormal sub-Riemannian geodesics: Morse index and rigidity
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• Sub-Riemannian geometry. General theory and examples
• Extremals in some classes of Carnot groups
• Existence, Multiplicity, and Regularity for sub-Riemannian Geodesics by Variational Methods
• Some properties of abnormal extremals on Lie groups
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• The regularity problem for sub-Riemannian geodesics
• Corners in non-equiregular sub-Riemannian manifolds
• Isometric embeddings of sub-Riemannian manifolds in R^m
• The Maslov index and some applications to dispersion relations in curved space times
• The regularization method for solving sub-Riemannian geodesic problems
• Regulated curves on a Banach manifold and singularities of endpoint map. I. Banach manifold structure
• Subriemannian geometry, a variational approach

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