We study symmetries of specific left--invariant sub--Riemannian structure with filtration $(4,7)$ and their impact on sub--Riemannian geodesics of corresponding control problem. We show that there are two very different types of geodesics, they either do not intersect the fixed point set of symmetries or are contained in this set for all times. We use the symmetry reduction to study properties of geodesics.
The Jacobi curve of an extremal of optimal control problem is a curve in a Lagrangian Grassmannian defined up to a symplectic transformation and containing all information about the solutions of the Jacobi equations along this extremal. In our previous works we constructed the canonical bundle of moving frames and the complete system of symplectic invariants, called curvature maps, for parametrized curves in Lagrange Grassmannians satisfying very general assumptions. The structural equation for a canonical moving frame of the Jacobi curve of an extremal can be interpreted as the normal form fo…
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 invariants help to find them. It is worth noting, that the obtained conditions can be explicitly checked for a given contact sub-Riemannian surface. Also, we consider sub-Riemannian surfaces which are not contact and find their invariants along the surface where the distribution fails to …
We prove a lower bound for the first eigenvalue of the sub-Laplacian on sub-Riemannian manifolds with transverse symmetries. When the manifold is of H-type, we obtain a corresponding rigidity result: If the optimal lower bound for the first eigenvalue is reached, then the manifold is equivalent to a 1 or a 3-Sasakian sphere.
We prove a geometrically meaningful stochastic representation of the derivative of the heat semigroup on sub-Riemannian manifolds with tranverse symmetries. This representation is obtained from the study of Bochner-Weitzenbock type formulas for sub-Laplacians on 1-forms. As a consequence, we prove new hypoelliptic heat semigroup gradient bounds under natural global geometric conditions. The results are new even in the case of the Heisenberg group which is the simplest example of a sub-Riemannian manifold with transverse symmetries.
Flag manifolds are in general not symmetric spaces. But they are provided with a structure of $\mathbb{Z}_2^k$-symmetric space. We describe the Riemannian metrics adapted to this structure and some properties of reducibility. We detail for the flag manifold $SO(5)/SO(2)\times SO(2) \times SO(1)$ what are the conditions for a metric adapted to the $\mathbb{Z}_2^2$-symmetric structure to be naturally reductive.
The notion of $Γ$-symmetric space is a natural generalization of the classical notion of symmetric space based on $\z_2$-grading of Lie algebras. In our case, we consider homogeneous spaces $G/H$ such that the Lie algebra $\g$ of $G$ admits a $Γ$-grading where $Γ$ is a finite abelian group. In this work we study Riemannian metrics and Lorentzian metrics on the Heisenberg group $\mathbb{H}_3$ adapted to the symmetries of a $Γ$-symmetric structure on $\mathbb{H}_3$. We prove that the classification of $\z_2^2$-symmetric Riemannian and Lorentzian metrics on $\mathbb{H}_3$ corresponds to the class…
Inspired by the Lichnerowicz-Obata theorem for the first eigenvalue of the Laplacian, we define a new family of invariants $\{Ω_k(g)\}$ for closed Riemannian manifolds. The value of $Ω_k(g)$ delicately reflects the spherical part of the manifold. Indeed, $Ω_1(g)$ and $Ω_2(g)$ characterize the standard sphere.
The notion of $Γ$-symmetric space is a natural generalization of the classical notion of symmetric space based on $\Z_2$-grading of Lie algebras. In our case, we consider homogeneous spaces $G/H$ such that the Lie algebra $\g$ of $G$ admits a $Γ$-grading where $Γ$ is a finite abelian group. In this work we study Riemannian metrics and Lorentzian metrics on the Heisenberg group $\mathbb{H}_3$ adapted to the symmetries of a $Γ$-symmetric structure on $\mathbb{H}_3$. We prove that the classification of $\z$-symmetric Riemannian and Lorentzian metrics on $\mathbb{H}_3$ corresponds to the classific…
By adapting a technique of Molchanov, we obtain the heat kernel asymptotics at the sub-Riemannian cut locus, when the cut points are reached by an $r$-dimensional parametric family of optimal geodesics. We apply these results to the bi-Heisenberg group, that is, a nilpotent left-invariant sub-Rieman\-nian structure on $\mathbb{R}^{5}$ depending on two real parameters $α_{1}$ and $α_{2}$. We develop some results about its geodesics and heat kernel associated to its sub-Laplacian and we illuminate some interesting geometric and analytic features appearing when one compares the isotropic ($α_{1}=…
The Cartan group is the free nilpotent Lie group of rank 2 and step 3. We consider the left-invariant sub-Riemannian problem on the Cartan group defined by an inner product in the first layer of its Lie algebra. This problem gives a nilpotent approximation of an arbitrary sub-Riemannian problem with the growth vector $(2,3,5)$. In previous works we described a group of symmetries of the sub-Riemannian problem on the Cartan group, and the corresponding Maxwell time -- the first time when symmetric geodesics intersect one another. It is known that geodesics are not globally optimal after the Max…
For a complete Riemannian metric, a pointwise conformal transformation may lead to a complete or incomplete transformed Riemannian metric, depending on the behavior of the conformal factor. We establish conditions on the growth of the conformal factor towards the infinity of the Riemannian metric, such that the conformally transformed Riemannian metric remains complete.
In this paper, energy function is used to investigate the eigen-solutions of $-Δu+ Vu=λu$ on the Riemannian manifolds. We give a new way to prove the positivity of the initial energy of energy function, which leads to a simple way to obtain the growth of eigen-solutions.
We determine the space of commuting symmetries of the Laplace operator on pseudo-Riemannian manifolds of constant curvature, and derive its algebra structure. Our construction is based on the Riemannian tractor calculus, allowing to construct a prolongation of the differential system for symmetric Killing tensors. We also discuss some aspects of its relation to projective differential geometry.
We consider the free nilpotent Lie algebra $L$ with 2 generators, of step 4, and the corresponding connected simply connected Lie group $G$. We study the left-invariant sub-Riemannian structure on $G$ defined by the generators of $L$ as an orthonormal frame. We compute two vector field models of $L$ by polynomial vector fields in $R^8$, and find an infinitesimal symmetry of the sub-Riemannian structure. Further, we compute explicitly the product rule in $G$, the right-invariant frame on $G$, linear on fibers Hamiltonians corresponding to the left-invariant and right-invariant frames on $G$, Ca…
Given a smooth free action of a compact connected Lie group $G$ on a smooth compact manifold $M$, we show that the space of $G$-invariant Riemannian metrics on $M$ whose automorphism group is precisely $G$ is open dense in the space of all $G$-invariant metrics, provided the dimension of $M$ is "sufficiently large" compared to that of $G$. As a consequence, it follows that every compact connected Lie group can be realized as the automorphism group of some compact connected Riemannian manifold; this recovers prior work by Bedford-Dadok and Saerens-Zame under less stringent dimension conditions.…
In this article we have studied some properties of subharmonic functions in a strongly symmetric Riemannian manifold with a pole. As a generalization of polynomial growth of a function we have introduced the notion of polynomial growth of some degree of a function with respect to a real function and proved that any non-negative twice differentiable subharmonic functions in an $n$-dimensional manifold always admit polynomial growth of degree $1$ with respect to a non-negative real valued subharmonic function on real line. We have also given a lower bound of the integration of a convex function …
A proposal is made for what could well be the most natural symmetrical Riemannian spaces which are homogeneous but not isotropic, i.e. of what could well be the most natural class of symmetrical spaces beyond the spaces of constant Riemannian curvature, that is, beyond the spaces which are homogeneous and isotropic, or, still, the spaces which satisfy the axiom of free mobility.
The curvature and the reduced curvature are basic differential invariants of the pair (Hamiltonian system, Lagrange distribution) on the symplectic manifold. It is shown that the negativity of the reduced curvature implies the hyperbolicity of any compact invariant set of the Hamiltonian flow restricted to a prescribed energy level. We consider the Hamiltonian flows of the curve of least action of natural mechanical systems in sub-Riemannian structures with symmetries. We give sufficient conditions for the reduced flows (after reduction of the first integrals induced from the symmetries) to be…
In this paper, using blow-up analysis, we prove a quantization result for an elliptic equation with critical exponential growth on compact Riemannian surface without boundary. Similar results for Euclidean space were obtained by Adimurthi-Struwe \cite{Adi-Stru}, Druet \cite{Druet}, Lamm-Robert-Struwe \cite{L-R-S}, Martinazzi \cite{Mart}, Martinazzi-Struwe \cite{Mar-Stru}, and Struwe \cite{Struwe} respectively.
The left-invariant sub-Riemannian problem on the Engel group is considered. The problem gives the nilpotent approximation to generic nonholonomic systems in four-dimensional space with two-dimensional control, for instance to a system which describes motion of mobile robot with a trailer. The global optimality of extremal trajectories is studied via geometric control theory. The global diffeomorphic structure of the exponential mapping is described. As a consequence, the cut time is proved to be equal to the first Maxwell time corresponding to discrete symmetries of the exponential mapping.
Let $\M$ be a smooth connected manifold endowed with a smooth measure $μ$ and a smooth locally subelliptic diffusion operator $L$ satisfying $L1=0$, and which is symmetric with respect to $μ$. Associated with $L$ one has \textit{le carré du champ} $Γ$ and a canonical distance $d$, with respect to which we suppose that $(M,d)$ be complete. We assume that $\M$ is also equipped with another first-order differential bilinear form $Γ^Z$ and we assume that $Γ$ and $Γ^Z$ satisfy the Hypothesis below. With these forms we introduce in \eqref{cdi} below a generalization of the curvature-dimension inequa…
We compute two vector field models of the Carnot algebra with the growth vector (2,3,5,8), and an infinitesimal symmetry of the corresponding sub-Riemannian structure.
In this work we study riemannian metrics on flag manifolds adapted to the symmetries of these homogeneous nonsymmetric spaces. We first introduce the notion of riemannian $Γ$-symmetric space when $Γ$ is a general abelian finite group, the symmetric case corresponding to $Γ=\Z_2$. We describe and study all the riemannian metrics on $SO(2n+1)/SO(r_1)\times SO(r_2)\times SO(r_3)\times SO(2n+1-r_1-r_2-r_3)$ for which the symmetries are isometries. We consider also the lorentzian case and give an example of a lorentzian homogeneous space which is not a symmetric space.
In this paper, we consider the eigen-solutions of $-Δu+ Vu=λu$, where $Δ$ is the Laplacian on a non-compact complete Riemannian manifold. We develop Kato's methods on manifold and establish the growth of the eigen-solutions as $r$ goes to infinity based on the asymptotical behaviors of $Δr$ and $V(x)$, where $r=r(x)$ is the distance function on the manifold. As applications, we prove several criteria of absence of eigenvalues of Laplacian, including a new proof of the absence of eigenvalues embedded into the essential spectra of free Laplacian if the radial curvature of the manifold satisfies …
We investigate heat kernel estimates of the form $p_{t}(x, x)\geq c_{x}t^{-α},$ for large enough $t,$ where $α$ and $c_{x}$ are positive reals and $c_{x}$ may depend on $x,$ on manifolds having at least one end.
We propose a model for a growth competition between two subsets of a Riemannian manifold. The sets grow at two different rates, avoiding each other. It is shown that if the competition takes place on a surface which is rotationally symmetric about the starting point of the slower set, then if the surface is conformally equivalent to the Euclidean plane, the slower set remains in a bounded region, while if the surface is nonpositively curved and conformally equivalent to the hyperbolic plane, both sets may keep growing indefinitely.
A Riemannian manifold is said to be uniformly secure if there is a finite number $s$ such that all geodesics connecting an arbitrary pair of points in the manifold can be blocked by $s$ point obstacles. We prove that the number of geodesics with length $\leq T$ between every pair of points in a uniformly secure manifold grows polynomially as $T \to \infty$. We derive from this that a compact Riemannian manifold with no conjugate points whose geodesic flow has positive topological entropy is totally insecure: the geodesics between any pair of points cannot be blocked by a finite number of point…
There is a well developed theory of weakly symmetric Riemannian manifolds. Here it is shown that several results in the Riemannian case are also valid for weakly symmetric pseudo-Riemannian manifolds, but some require additional hypotheses. The topics discussed are homogeneity, geodesic completeness, the geodesic orbit property, weak symmetries, and the structure of the nilradical of the isometry group. Also, we give a number of examples of weakly symmetric pseudo-Riemannian manifolds, some mirroring the Riemannian case and some indicating the problems in extending Riemannian results to weakly…
In this paper we study geodesics of left-invariant sub-Riemannian metrics on SO(3) and almost-Riemannian metrics on $S^2$. These structures are connected with each other, and it is possible to use information about one of them to obtain results about another one. We give an explicit parameterization of sub-Riemannian geodesics on SO(3) and use it to get a parameterization of almost-Riemannian geodesics on $S^2$. We use symmetries of the exponential map to obtain some necessary optimality conditions. We present some upper bounds on the cut time in both cases and describe periodic geodesics on S…
We consider the three-dimensional Heisenberg group, equipped with any left-invariant metric, either Lorentzian or Riemannian. We completely classify their affine vector fields and investigate their relationship with Killing vector fields and their casual character. We also classify their Ricci, curvature and matter collineations, proving that there are no nontrivial examples.
Let (M,F) be a closed manifold with a Riemannian foliation. We show that the secondary characteristic classes of the Molino's commuting sheaf of (M,F) vanish if (M,F) is developable and the fundamental group of M is of polynomial growth. By theorems of Álvarez López, our result implies that (M,F) is minimizable under the same conditions. As a corollary, we show that (M,F) is minimizable if F is of codimension 2 and the fundamental group of M is of polynomial growth.
B.-Y. Chen famously conjectured that every submanifold of Euclidean space with harmonic mean curvature vector is minimal. In this note we establish a much more general statement for a large class of submanifolds satisfying a growth condition at infinity. We discuss in particular two popular competing natural interpretations of the conjecture when the Euclidean background space is replaced by an arbitrary Riemannian manifold. Introducing the notion of epsilon-superbiharmonic submanifolds, which contains each of the previous notions as special cases, we prove that epsilon-superbiharmonic submani…
We present a new link between the Invariant Theory of infinitesimal singular Riemannian foliations and Jordan algebras. This, together with an inhomogeneous version of Weyl's First Fundamental Theorems, provides a characterization of the recently discovered Clifford foliations in terms of basic polynomials. This link also yields new structural results about infinitesimal foliations, such as the existence of non-trivial symmetries.
In this paper, we study the volume growth property of a non-compact complete Riemannian manifold $X$. We improve the volume growth theorem of Calabi (1975) and Yau (1976), Cheeger, Gromov and Taylor (1982). Then we use our new result to study gradient Ricci solitons. We also show that on $X$, for any $q\in (0,\infty)$, every non-negative $L^q$ subharmonic function is constant under a natural decay condition on the Ricci curvature.
This paper reviews several Riemannian metrics and evolution equations in the context of diffeomorphic shape analysis. After a short review of of various approaches at building Riemannian spaces of shapes, with a special focus on the foundations of the large deformation diffeomorphic metric mapping algorithm, the attention is turned to elastic metrics, and to growth models that can be derived from it. In the latter context, a new class of metrics, involving the optimization of a growth tensor, is introduced and some of its properties are studied.
We introduce the notion of spectral flow along a periodic semi-Riemannian geodesic, as a suitable substitute of the Morse index in the Riemannian case. We study the growth of the spectral flow along a closed geodesic under iteration, determining its asymptotic behavior.
This paper is a starting point towards computing the Hausdorff dimension of submanifolds and the Hausdorff volume of small balls in a sub-Riemannian manifold with singular points. We first consider the case of a strongly equiregular submanifold, i.e., a smooth submanifold N for which the growth vector of the distribution D and the growth vector of the intersection of D with TN are constant on N. In this case, we generalize the result in [12], which relates the Hausdorff dimension to the growth vector of the distribution. We then consider analytic sub-Riemannian manifolds and, under the assumpt…
Sub-Riemannian structures on odd-dimensional spheres respecting the Hopf fibration naturally appear in quantum mechanics. We study the curvature maps for such a sub-Riemannian structure and express them using the Riemannian curvature tensor of the Fubini-Study metric of the complex projective space and the curvature form of the Hopf fibration. We also estimate the number of conjugate points of a sub-Riemannian extremal in terms of the bounds of the sectional curvature and the curvature form. It presents a typical example for the study of curvature maps and comparison theorms for a general cora…
The purpose of this paper is to study the property of the resolvent of the Laplace-Beltrami operator on a noncompact complete Riemannian manifold with various ends each of which has a different limit of the growth rate of the Riemannian measure at infinity, in particular, focusing on the limiting absorption principle. As a result, we will obtain the absolute continuity of the Laplace-Beltrami operator.
Riemannian geometrical tools, such as Ricci collineations and Killing symmetries, so often used in Einstein general theory of gravitation are here applied to plasma physics to build magnetic surfaces from Einstein plasma metrics used in tokamak devices. It is shown that the Killing symmetries are constrains the Einstein magnetic surfaces while the Killing vectors are built in terms of the displacement of the toroidal surface. The pressure is computed by applying these constraints to the pressure equations in tokamaks. A method, based on the sign of the only nontrivial constant Riemann curvatur…
A general theory of partial balayage on Riemannian manifolds is developed, with emphasis on compact manifolds. Partial balayage is an operation of sweeping measures, or charge distributions, to a prescribed density, and it is closely related to (construction of) quadrature domains for subharmonic functions, growth processes such as Laplacian growth and to weighted equilibrium distributions. Several examples are given in the paper, as well as some specific results. For instance, it is proved that, in two dimensions, harmonic and geodesic balls are the same if and only if the Gaussian curvature …
For a subRiemannian manifold and a given Riemannian extension of the metric, we define a canonical global connection. This connection coincides with both the Levi-Civita connection on Riemannian manifolds and the Tanaka-Webster connection on strictly pseudoconvex CR manifolds. We define a notion of normality generalizing Tanaka's notion for CR manifolds to the subRiemannian case. Under the assumption of normality, we construct local frames that simplify computations in a manner analogous to Riemannian normal coordinates. We then use these frames to establish Bianchi Identities and symmetries f…
