Homogeneous spaces with inner metric and with integrable invariant distributions

Abstract

This paper is a survey of results (partly obtained by the authors) on homogeneous spaces of Lie groups \(G\) with a compact stabilizer subgroup \(H\), on which every \(G\)-invariant distribution is integrable. It is proved that the condition of integrability is necessary and sufficient for every invariant inner metric to be (holonomic) Finsler on such a space. As a corollary of the obtained results, we assert that the class of homogeneous spaces with invariant non-holonomic Riemannian metrics (in other terms, sub-Riemannian or Carnot–Caratheodory metrics), which were actively studied last 3 decades after Gromov’s work, is rather broad. On the other hand, the class of homogeneous spaces with integrable invariant distributions includes Cartan’s symmetric spaces as well as isotropy irreducible, in particular, strictly isotropy irreducible, homogeneous spaces, which have been classified in simply connected case in the papers by Wang and Ziller (respectively, by Manturov, Wolf and Kramer). Special attention is paid to the case, when the Lie groups \(G\) and \(H\) are connected. Then the integrability condition of the invariant distributions is equivalent to a purely algebraic condition, that for the Lie algebra \(h\) of the subgroup \(H\), any \(ad(h)\)-invariant vector subspace in the Lie algebra \(g\) of the Lie group \(G\) is a Lie subalgebra; such Lie subalgebra \(h\subset g\) is called a strong subalgebra. The first author proved that a simply connected and compact space \(G/H\) with this condition is isomorphic to a direct product of strictly isotropy irreducible homogeneous spaces. In line with this, the second author recently found several non-compact simply connected homogeneous spaces with this condition, which are not isomorphic to such direct products. These results are naturally related to the structure questions of a class of general homogeneous locally compact spaces with an inner metric. This class is exactly the closure in the Gromov–Hausdorff sense of the class of homogeneous manifolds with an inner metric. Any such manifold is isometric to some homogeneous manifold \(G/H\) with \(G\)-invariant (may be, non-holonomic) Finsler metric. The authors give fairly detailed survey of the existing methods of the search of geodesics, i.e., locally shortest arcs, on such manifolds (particularly, with invariant non-holonomic Riemannian metrics), non-holonomic metric geometry and its relations with the geometric group theory, \(CR\)-manifolds, thermodynamics, etc. Some unsolved problems are suggested.