We study minimal surfaces in sub-riemannian manifolds with sub-riemannian structures of co-rank one. These surfaces can be defined as the critical points of the so-called horizontal area functional associated with the canonical horizontal area form. We derive the intrinsic equation in the general case and then consider in greater detail $2$-dimensional surfaces in contact manifolds of dimension $3$. We show that in this case minimal surfaces are projections of a special class of $2$-dimensional surfaces...

We study minimal surfaces in sub-Riemannian manifolds with sub-Riemannian structures of co-rank one. These surfaces can be defined as the critical points of the so-called horizontal area functional associated with the canonical horizontal area form. We derive the intrinsic equation in the general case and then consider in greater detail 2-dimensional surfaces in contact manifolds of dimension 3. We show that in this case minimal surfaces are projections of a special class of 2-dimensional surfaces...

In this paper, we study the motion planning problem for generic sub-riemannian metrics of co-rank one. We give explicit expressions for the metric complexity (in the sense of Jean [10, 11]), in terms of the elementary invariants of the problem. We construct asymptotic optimal syntheses. It turns out that among the results we show, the most complicated case is the 3-dimensional. Besides the generic $C^{\infty }$ case, we study some non-generic generalizations in the analytic case.

In this paper, we study the motion planning problem for generic sub-Riemannian metrics of co-rank one. We give explicit expressions for the metric complexity (in the sense of Jean [CITE]), in terms of the elementary invariants of the problem. We construct asymptotic optimal syntheses. It turns out that among the results we show, the most complicated case is the 3-dimensional. Besides the generic C∞ case, we study some non-generic generalizations in the analytic case.

We find necessary and sufficient conditions for a Lipschitz map f : E ⊂ ℝk → X into a metric space to satisfy ℋk(f(E)) = 0. An interesting feature of our approach is that despite the fact that we are dealing with arbitrary metric spaces, we employ a variant of the classical implicit function theorem. Applications include pure unrectifiability of the Heisenberg groups.

In sub-Riemannian geometry the coefficients of the Jacobi equation define curvature-like invariants. We show that these coefficients can be interpreted as the curvature of a canonical Ehresmann connection associated to the metric, first introduced in [15]. We show why this connection is naturally nonlinear, and we discuss some of its properties.

Fix two points $x,\overline{x}\in S^2$ and two directions (without orientation) $\eta ,\overline{\eta }$ of the velocities in these points. In this paper we are interested to the problem of minimizing the cost $J\left[\gamma \right]={\int }_0^T\left({}_{\gamma \left(t\right)}(\dot{\gamma }\left(t\right),\dot{\gamma }\left(t\right))+K_{\gamma \left(t\right)}^2{}_{\gamma \left(t\right)}(\dot{\gamma }\left(t\right),\dot{\gamma }\left(t\right))\right)\mathrm{d}t$ along all smooth curves starting from x with direction η and ending in $\overline{x}$ with direction $\overline{\eta }$. Here g is the standard Riemannian metric on S2 and $K_{\gamma }$ is the corresponding geodesic curvature. The interest of this problem comes from mechanics and geometry of vision. It can be formulated as a sub-Riemannian problem on the lens space L(4,1). We...

We compute future timelike and nonspacelike reachable sets from the origin for a class of contact sub-Lorentzian metrics on ℝ³. Then we construct non-smooth (and therefore non-Hamiltonian) null geodesics for these metrics. As a consequence we deduce that the sub-Lorentzian distance from the origin is continuous at points belonging to the boundary of the reachable set.

We consider an optimal control problem describing a laser-induced population transfer on a $n$-level quantum system. For a convex cost depending only on the moduli of controls (i.e. the lasers intensities), we prove that there always exists a minimizer in resonance. This permits to justify some strategies used in experimental physics. It is also quite important because it permits to reduce remarkably the complexity of the problem (and extend some of our previous results for $n=2$ and $n=3$): instead of looking...

We consider an optimal control problem describing a laser-induced population transfer on a n-level quantum system. For a convex cost depending only on the moduli of controls (i.e. the lasers intensities), we prove that there always exists a minimizer in resonance. This permits to justify some strategies used in experimental physics. It is also quite important because it permits to reduce remarkably the complexity of the problem (and extend some of our previous results for n=2 and n=3): instead...

The purpose of this paper is to give an illustration of results on integrability of distributions and orbits of vector fields on Banach manifolds obtained in [5] and [4]. Using arguments and results of these papers, in the context of a separable Hilbert space, we give a generalization of a Theorem of accessibility contained in [3] and [6] for articulated arms and snakes in a finite dimensional Hilbert space.

Vengono presentati alcuni problemi, idee e tecniche sorte nell'ambito della teoria delle equazioni alle derivate parziali del secondo ordine, con forma caratteristica semidefinita positiva e con soggiacenti strutture sub-riemanniane. Se ne traccia lo sviluppo a partire dalla classica teoria delle funzioni armoniche e caloriche, attraverso la teoria del potenziale negli spazi armonici astratti e la teoria della regolarità locale delle soluzioni.

In Carnot groups of step  ≤ 3, all subriemannian geodesics are proved to be normal. The proof is based on a reduction argument and the Goh condition for minimality of singular curves. The Goh condition is deduced from a reformulation and a calculus of the end-point mapping which boils down to the graded structures of Carnot groups.

We study sub-Riemannian (Carnot-Caratheodory) metrics defined by noninvolutive distributions on real-analytic Riemannian manifolds. We establish a connection between regularity properties of these metrics and the lack of length minimizing abnormal geodesics. Utilizing the results of the previous study of abnormal length minimizers accomplished by the authors in [Annales IHP. Analyse nonlinéaire 13, p. 635-690] we describe in this paper two classes of the germs of distributions (called 2-generating...