arXiv research

Holonomy groups of K-contact sub-Riemannian manifolds are studied.

Study sub-Riemannian surfaces in contact manifolds, proving a Gauss-Bonnet theorem.

We prove existence of regions minimizing perimeter under a volume constraint in contact sub-Riemannian manifolds such that their quotient by the group of contact transformations preserving the sub-Riemannian metric is compact.

We compare different notions of curvature on contact sub-Riemannian manifolds. In particular we introduce canonical curvatures as the coefficients of the sub-Riemannian Jacobi equation. The main result is that all these coefficients are encoded in the asymptotic expansion of the horizontal derivatives of the sub-Rieman…

Study stochastic processes on surfaces in contact sub-Riemannian manifolds using Riemannian approximations.

Quantifies tightness in 3D contact manifolds using sub-Riemannian metrics.

Study of intrinsic sub-Laplacian for hypersurfaces in contact sub-Riemannian manifolds.

Paper proves inequalities for forms on sub-Riemannian manifolds.

Geodesics spiral around Reeb orbits in 3D contact manifolds.

Study contact 3-manifolds using sub-Riemannian geometry, proving new properties of their Lipschitz homotopy groups.

On H-type sub-Riemannian manifolds we establish sub-Hessian and sub-Laplacian comparison theorems which are uniform for a family of approximating Riemannian metrics converging to the sub-Riemannian one. We also prove a sharp sub-Riemannian Bonnet-Myers theorem that extends to this general setting results previously pro…

The paper proves a decomposition theorem for forms on sub-Riemannian contact manifolds.

Study periodic geodesics on contact 3D manifolds, proving existence and precise properties.

We compute the asymptotic expansion of the volume of small sub-Riemannian balls in a contact 3-dimensional manifold, and we express the first meaningful geometric coefficients in terms of geometric invariants of the sub-Riemannian structure

Proves Steiner and tube formulae for 3D contact sub-Riemannian surfaces.

Study Schrödinger evolution on surfaces in 3D contact sub-Riemannian manifolds.

Introduces canonical connections for sub-Riemannian manifolds with constant symbol.

Holonomy groups of K-contact sub-Riemannian manifolds are isomorphic.

Study magnetic flows on 3D contact sub-Riemannian manifolds using Rumin complex.

We study the sub-Riemannian exponential for contact distributions on manifolds of dimension greater or equal to 5. We compute an approximation of the sub-Riemannian Hamiltonian flow and show that the conjugate time can have multiplicity 2 in this case. We obtain an approximation of the first conjugate locus for small r…

We solve the local equivalence problem for sub-Riemannian structures on (2n + 1)-dimensional manifolds. We show that two sub-Riemannian structures are locally equivalent if and only if? their corresponding canonical linear connections are equivalent. When n = 1, these connections coincide with the generalized Tanaka-We…

Study investigates induced geometry on surfaces in 3D contact manifolds.

Study on surfaces of genus g≥1 in 3D contact sub-Riemannian manifolds, proving finiteness or infiniteness of induced distance.

We construct a canonically defined affine connection in sub-Riemannian contact geometry. Our method mimics that of the Levi-Civita connection in Riemannian geometry. We compare it with the Tanaka-Webster connection in the three-dimensional case.

In this paper we consider surfaces of class $C^1$ with continuous prescribed mean curvature in a three-dimensional contact sub-Riemannian manifold and prove that their characteristic curves are of class $C^2$. This regularity result also holds for critical points of the sub-Riemannian perimeter under a volume constrain…

The paper explores conditions for constructing and extending infinitesimal isometries on special sub-Riemannian manifolds.

Unified interpretation of sub-Riemannian Gauss-Bonnet theorem for surfaces in 3D contact manifolds.

The paper develops a non-transitive Cartan connection for sub-Riemannian manifolds.

We prove a Bonnet-Myers type theorem for quaternionic contact manifolds of dimension bigger than 7. If the manifold is complete with respect to the natural sub-Riemannian distance and satisfies a natural Ricci-type bound expressed in terms of derivatives up to the third order of the fundamental tensors, then the manifo…

We obtain some results on symmetries of sub-Riemannian surfaces. In case of contact sub-Riemannian surface we base on invariants found by Hughen \cite{Hughen}. Using these invariants, we find conditions under which a sub-Riemannian surface does not admit symmetries. If a surface admits symmetries, we show how invariant…

The geodesics for a sub-Riemannian metric on a three-dimensional contact manifold $M$ form a 1-parameter family of curves along each contact direction. However, a collection of such contact curves on $M$, locally equivalent to the solutions of a fourth-order ODE, are the geodesics of a sub-Riemannian metric only if a s…

The paper defines a new connection on sub-Riemannian manifolds and explores conditions for almost quasi-Sasakian manifolds to be Einstein.

We study some sub-Riemannian objects (such as horizontal connectivity, horizontal connection, horizontal tangent plane, horizontal mean curvature) in hypersurfaces of sub-Riemannian manifolds. We prove that if a connected hypersurface in a contact manifold of dimension more than three is noncharacteristic or with isola…

In this paper we study the small time asymptotics for the heat kernel on a sub-Riemannian manifold, using a perturbative approach. We then explicitly compute, in the case of a 3D contact structure, the first two coefficients of the small time asymptotics expansion of the heat kernel on the diagonal, expressing them in …

Notes on sub-Riemannian geometry equivalence problem.

In this paper we provide the small-time heat kernel asymptotics at the cut locus in three relevant cases: generic low-dimensional Riemannian manifolds, generic 3D contact sub-Riemannian manifolds (close to the starting point) and generic 4D quasi-contact sub-Riemannian manifolds (close to a generic starting point). As …

In this paper we consider a set $E\subsetΩ$ with prescribed mean curvature $f\in C(Ω)$ and Euclidean Lipschitz boundary $\partial E=Σ$ inside a three-dimensional contact sub-Riemannian manifold $M$. We prove that if $Σ$ is locally a regular intrinsic graph, the characteristic curves are of class $C^2$. The result is sh…

In the present paper we consider generic Sub-Riemannian structures on the co-rank 1 non-holonomic vector distributions and introduce the associated canonical volume and ''horizontal'' area forms. As in the classical case, the Sub-Riemannian minimal surfaces can be defined as the critical points of the '`horizontal'' ar…

We study eigenvalue problems for intrinsic sub-Laplacians on regular sub-Riemannian manifolds. We prove upper bounds for sub-Laplacian eigenvalues $λ_k$ of conformal sub-Riemannian metrics that are asymptotically sharp as $k\to +\infty$. For Sasakian manifolds with a lower Ricci curvature bound, and more generally, for…

With a view toward sub-Riemannian geometry, we introduce and study H-type foliations. These structures are natural generalizations of K-contact geometries which encompass as special cases K-contact manifolds, twistor spaces, 3K contact manifolds and H-type groups. Under an horizontal Ricci curvature lower bound, we pro…

We prove the equivalence of several natural notions of conformal maps between sub-Riemannian manifolds. Our main contribution is in the setting of those manifolds that support a suitable regularity theory for subelliptic $p$-Laplacian operators. For such manifolds we prove a Liouville-type theorem, i.e., 1-quasiconform…

There are many equivalent definitions of Riemannian geodesics. They are naturally generalised to sub-Riemannian manifold, but become non-equivalent. We give a review of different definitions of geodesics of a sub-Riemannian manifold and interrelation between them. We recall three variational definitions of geodesics as…

We report on some aspects and recent progress in certain problems in the sub-Riemannian CR and quaternionic contact (QC) geometries. The focus are the corresponding Yamabe problems on the round spheres, the Lichnerowicz-Obata first eigenvalue estimates, and the relation between these two problems. A motivation from the…

We show that in the first sub-Riemannian Heisenberg group there are intrinsic graphs of smooth functions that are both critical and stable points of the sub-Riemannian perimeter under compactly supported variations of contact diffeomorphisms, despite the fact that they are not area-minimizing surfaces. In particular, w…

Study on curvatures of surfaces in specific Lie groups.

We discuss contact geometry naturally related with optimal control problems (and Pontryagin Maximum Principle). We explore and expand the observations of [Ohsawa, 2015], providing simple and elegant characterizations of normal and abnormal sub-Riemannian extremals.

We prove several relations between spectrum and dynamics including wave trace expansion, sharp/improved Weyl laws, propagation of singularities and quantum ergodicity for the sub-Riemannian (sR) Laplacian in the four dimensional quasi-contact case. A key role in all results is played by the presence of abnormal geodesi…

Consider a smooth manifold $M$ equipped with a bracket generating distribution $D$. Two sub-Riemannian metrics on $(M,D)$ are said to be projectively (resp. affinely) equivalent if they have the same geodesics up to reparameterization (resp. up to affine reparameterization). A sub-Riemannian metric $g$ is called rigid …