arXiv research

The horizontal Laplacian of a Riemannian submersion with totally geodesic fibers and an integrable horizontal distribution.

The study develops inequalities for Riemannian foliations without bundle-like assumptions.

We develop a variational theory of geodesics for the canonical variation of the metric of a totally geodesic foliation. As a consequence, we obtain comparison theorems for the horizontal and vertical Laplacians. In the case of Sasakian foliations, we show that sharp horizontal and vertical comparison theorems for the s…

The geometry of the quaternionic anti-de Sitter fibration is studied in details. As a consequence, we obtain formulas for the horizontal Laplacian and subelliptic heat kernel of the fibration. The heat kernel formula is explicit enough to derive small time asymptotics. Related twistor spaces and corresponding heat kern…

We first present the natural definitions of the horizontal differential, the divergence (as an adjoint operator), and a $p$-harmonic form on a Finsler manifold. Next, we prove a Hodge-type theorem for a Finsler manifold in the sense that a horizontal $p$-form is harmonic if and only if the horizontal Laplacian vanishes…

We study the horizontal Laplacian $Δ^H$ associated to the Hopf fibration $S^3\to S^2$ with arbitrary Chern number $k$. We use representation theory to calculate the spectrum, describe the heat kernel and obtain the complete heat trace asymptotics of $Δ^H$. We express the Green functions for associated Poisson semigroup…

Carnot groups can be polarized if they have specific coordinate systems.

The main technical result of the paper is a Bochner type formula for the sub-laplacian on a quaternionic contact manifold. With the help of this formula we establish a version of Lichnerowicz' theorem giving a lower bound of the eigenvalues of the sub-Laplacian under a lower bound on the $Sp(n)Sp(1)$ components of the …

For a second order operator on a compact manifold satisfying the strong Hörmander condition, we give a bound for the spectral gap analogous to the Lichnerowicz estimate for the Laplacian of a Riemannian manifold. We consider a wide class of such operators which includes horizontal lifts of the Laplacian on Riemannian s…

Invariance principle proved for lifted geodesic walks on Riemannian submersions.

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…

The paper proves new comparison theorems for sub-Laplacian in foliations with minimal leaves.

We prove a family of new Weitzenböck formulas on a Riemannian foliation with totally geodesic leaves. These Weitzenböck formulas are naturally parametrized by the canonical variation of the metric. As a consequence, under natural geometric conditions, the horizontal Laplacian satisfies a generalized curvature dimension…

Extends potential theory to Carnot groups, estimating Hausdorff dimension.

We establish lower bounds for the first non-zero eigenvalue for the natural geometric sub-elliptic Laplacian operator defined on sub-Riemannian manifolds of step 2 that satisfy a positive curvature condition. The methods are very general and can be applied even when the sub-Riemannian geometry has considerable torsion.

Find conditions for starshapedness of level sets in Heisenberg group.

Formula calculates manifold Euler characteristic from curvature.

We consider different sub-Laplacians on a sub-Riemannian manifold $M$. Namely, we compare different natural choices for such operators, and give conditions under which they coincide. One of these operators is a sub-Laplacian we constructed previously in \cite{GordinaLaetsch2014a}. This operator is canonical with respec…

Unified treatment of two extension problems using heat equation in Heisenberg group.

We study the strong maximum principle for horizontal (p-) mean curvature operator and p-(sub)laplacian operator on subriemannian manifolds including, in particular, Heisenberg groups and Heisenberg cylinders. Under a certain Hormander type condition on vector fields, we show the strong maximum principle holds in higher…

We prove a CR Obata type result that if the first positive eigenvalue of the sub-Laplacian on a compact strictly pseudoconvex pseudohermitian manifold with a divergence free pseudohermitian torsion takes the smallest possible value then, up to a homothety of the pseudohermitian structure, the manifold is the standart S…

We prove transverse Weitzenböck identities for the horizontal Laplacians of a totally geodesic foliation. As a consequence, we obtain nullity theorems for the de Rham cohomology assuming only the positivity of curvature quantities transverse to the leaves. Those curvature quantities appear in the adiabatic limit of the…

In this paper, we give an estimate of sub-Laplacian of Riemannian distance functions in pseudo-Hermitian geometry which plays a similar role as Laplacian comparison theorem in Riemannian geometry, and deduce a prior horizontal gradient estimate of pseudo-harmonic maps from pseudo-Hermitian manifolds to regular balls of…

Study magnetic Laplacian eigenvalues on contact manifolds.

This paper considers a classical question of approximation of Brownian motion by a random walk in the setting of a sub-Riemannian manifold $M$. To construct such a random walk we first address several issues related to the degeneracy of such a manifold. In particular, we define a family of sub-Laplacian operators natur…

In the current paper,under the transverse Ricci flow on a totally geodesic Riemannian foliation, we prove two types of differential Harnack inequalities (Li-Yau gradient estimate) for the positive solutions of the heat equation associated with the time dependent horizontal Laplacian operators. We also get a time depend…

We study a new class of rank two sub-Riemannian manifolds encompassing Riemannian manifolds, CR manifolds with vanishing Webster-Tanaka torsion, orthonormal bundles over Riemannian manifolds, and graded nilpotent Lie groups of step two. These manifolds admit a canonical horizontal connection and a canonical sub-Laplaci…

Let $G = N \rtimes A$, where $N$ is a stratified group and $A = \mathbb{R}$ acts on $N$ via automorphic dilations. Homogeneous sub-Laplacians on $N$ and $A$ can be lifted to left-invariant operators on $G$ and their sum is a sub-Laplacian $Δ$ on $G$. Here we prove weak type $(1,1)$, $L^p$-boundedness for $p \in (1,2]$ …

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…

Develops a new calculus for studying operators on principal bundles.

Sharp spectral estimates for negatively curved foliations.

We find sharp bounds for the norm inequality on a Pseudo-hermitian manifold, where the L^2 norm of all second derivatives of the function involving horizontal derivatives is controlled by the L^2 norm of the sub-Laplacian. Perturbation allows us to get a-priori bounds for solutions to sub-elliptic PDE in non-divergence…

This paper has four main parts. In the first part, we construct a noncommutative residue for the hypoelliptic calculus on Heisenberg manifolds, that is, for the class of Heisenberg PsiDOs introduced by Beals-Greiner and Taylor. This noncommutative residue appears as the residual trace on integer order Heisenberg PsiDOs…

Study local invariants and geometry of sub-Laplacian on H-type foliations.

On a sub-Riemannian manifold we define two type of Laplacians. The \emph{macroscopic Laplacian} $Δ_ω$, as the divergence of the horizontal gradient, once a volume $ω$ is fixed, and the \emph{microscopic Laplacian}, as the operator associated with a sequence of geodesic random walks. We consider a general class of rando…

Corrected Monti's blow-up analysis for H-minimizing sets in Heisenberg group.

We prove a quaternionic contact versions of the Obata's sphere theorems. We show that if the first positive eigenvalue of the sub-Laplacian on a compact qc manifold of dimension bigger than seven takes the smallest possible value then, up to a homothety of the qc structure, the manifold is qc equivalent to the standard…

A Carnot group $\mathbb{G}$ admits Lusin approximation for horizontal curves if for any absolutely continuous horizontal curve $γ$ in $\mathbb{G}$ and $\varepsilon>0$, there is a $C^1$ horizontal curve $Γ$ such that $Γ=γ$ and $Γ'=γ'$ outside a set of measure at most $\varepsilon$. We verify this property for free Carno…

Defines conformal submersion with horizontal distribution and provides necessary conditions for its existence.

We describe explicit horizontal open books on some Seifert fibered 3--manifolds. We show that the contact structures compatible with these horizontal open books are Stein fillable and horizontal as well. Moreover we draw surgery diagrams for some of these contact structures.

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…

The paper studies critical points of horizontal energy functional in Riemannian foliations.

Study horizontal discs in fat distributions, proving their existence.

Affine and conformal submersions with horizontal distribution are studied in statistical manifolds.

The complexity of horizontality in twistor spaces on tori is infinite.

We study unit horizontal bundles associated with Riemannian submersions. First we investigate metric properties of an arbitrary unit horizontal bundle equipped with a Riemannian metric of the Cheeger-Gromoll type. Next we examine it from the Gromov-Hausdorff convergence theory point of view, and we state a collapse the…

We describe explicit open books on arbitrary plumbings of oriented circle bundles over closed oriented surfaces. We show that, for a non-positive plumbing, the open book we construct is horizontal and the corresponding compatible contact structure is also horizontal and Stein fillable. In particular, we describe horizo…

In this paper we adopt the pullback approach to global Finsler geometry. We investigate horizontally recurrent Finsler connections. We prove that for each scalar ($π$)1-form $A$, there exists a unique horizontally recurrent Finsler connection whose $h$-recurrence form is $A$. This result generalizes the existence and u…