Homogeneous geodesics in sub-Riemannian geometry

Sub-Riemannian Geometry and Geodesics in Banach Manifolds

In this paper, we define and study sub-Riemannian structures on Banach manifolds. We obtain extensions of the Chow-Rashevski theorem for exact controllability, and give conditions for the existence of a Hamiltonian geodesic flow despite the lack of a Pontryagin Maximum Principle in the infinite dimensional setting.

The regularity problem for sub-Riemannian geodesics

One of the main open problems in sub-Riemannian geometry is the regularity of length minimizing curves, see [12, Problem 10.1]. All known examples of length minimizing curves are smooth. On the other hand, there is no regularity theory of a general character for sub-Riemannian geodesics. It was originally claimed by Strichartz in [15] that length minimizing curves are smooth, all of them being ...

The Regularity Problem for Sub-riemannian Geodesics

We study the regularity problem for sub-Riemannian geodesics, i.e., for those curves that minimize length among all curves joining two fixed endpoints and whose derivatives are tangent to a given, smooth distribution of planes with constant rank. We review necessary conditions for optimality and we introduce extremals and the Goh condition. The regularity problem is nontrivial due to the presen...

Sub - Riemannian geometry :

Take an n-dimensional manifold M . Endow it with a distribution, by which I mean a smooth linear subbundle D ⊂ TM of its tangent bundle TM . So, for x ∈ M , we have a k-plane Dx ⊂ TxM , and by letting x vary we obtain a smoothly varying family of k-planes on M . Put a smoothly varying family g of inner products on each k-plane. The data (M,D, g) is, by definition, a sub-Riemannian geometry. Tak...

Sub-riemannian Geometry