almost-Riemannian Structures Research Articles

Almost-Riemannian structures on nonnilpotent, solvable 3D Lie groups

In this paper we study Almost-Riemannian Structures (ARS) on the class of nonnilpotent, solvable, connected 3D Lie groups. The nice structures present in such groups allow us to show that the singular locus of ARSs on such groups are always embedded submanifolds.

General nilpotent and solvable approximations of almost-Riemannian structures

It is first shown that the nilpotent or the solvable approximation of an almost-Riemannian structure at a singular point is always a linear almost-Riemannian structure on a Lie group or a homogeneous space.The generic properties of almost-Riemannian structures are then investigated in all dimensions and the generic nilpotent and solvable approximations are identified.

Quantum Confinement for the Curvature Laplacian −Δ + cK on 2D-Almost-Riemannian Manifolds

Two-dimension almost-Riemannian structures of step 2 are natural generalizations of the Grushin plane. They are generalized Riemannian structures for which the vectors of a local orthonormal frame can become parallel. Under the 2-step assumption the singular set Z, where the structure is not Riemannian, is a 1D embedded submanifold. While approaching the singular set, all Riemannian quantities diverge. A remarkable property of these structures is that the geodesics can cross the singular set without singularities, but the heat and the solution of the Schrödinger equation (with the Laplace-Beltrami operator Δ) cannot. This is due to the fact that (under a natural compactness hypothesis), the Laplace-Beltrami operator is essentially self-adjoint on a connected component of the manifold without the singular set. In the literature such phenomenon is called quantum confinement. In this paper we study the self-adjointness of the curvature Laplacian, namely −Δ + cK, for c ∈ (0,1/2) (here K is the Gaussian curvature), which originates in coordinate-free quantization procedures (as for instance in path-integral or covariant Weyl quantization). We prove that there is no quantum confinement for this type of operators.

Solvable approximations of 3-dimensional almost-Riemannian structures

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>In some cases, the nilpotent approximation of an almost-Riemannian structure can degenerate into a constant rank sub-Riemannian one. In those cases, the nilpotent approximation can be replaced by a solvable one that turns out to be a linear ARS on a nilpotent Lie group or a homogeneous space.</p><p style='text-indent:20px;'>The distance defined by the solvable approximation is analyzed in the 3D-generic cases. It is shown that it is a better approximation of the original distance than the nilpotent one.</p>

Isometries of almost-Riemannian structures on Lie groups

A simple Almost-Riemannian Structure on a Lie group G is defined by a linear vector field (that is an infinitesimal automorphism) and dim⁡(G)−1 left-invariant ones.It is first proven that two different ARSs are isometric if and only if there exists an isometry between them that fixes the identity. Such an isometry preserves the left-invariant distribution and the linear field. If the Lie group is nilpotent it is an automorphism.These results are used to state a complete classification of the ARSs on the 2D affine and the Heisenberg groups.

Local properties of almost-Riemannian structures in dimension 3

A 3D almost-Riemannian manifold is a generalized Riemannian manifold defined locally by 3 vector fields that play the role of an orthonormal frame, but could become collinear on some set $\Zz$ called the singular set. Under the Hormander condition, a 3D almost-Riemannian structure still has a metric space structure, whose topology is compatible with the original topology of the manifold. Almost-Riemannian manifolds were deeply studied in dimension 2. In this paper we start the study of the 3D case which appear to be reacher with respect to the 2D case, due to the presence of abnormal extremals which define a field of directions on the singular set. We study the type of singularities of the metric that could appear generically, we construct local normal forms and we study abnormal extremals. We then study the nilpotent approximation and the structure of the corresponding small spheres. We finally give some preliminary results about heat diffusion on such manifolds.

Normal forms and invariants for 2-dimensional almost-Riemannian structures

2-Dimensional almost-Riemannian structures are generalized Riemannian structures on surfaces for which a local orthonormal frame is given by a Lie bracket generating pair of vector fields that can become collinear. Generically, there are three types of points: Riemannian points where the two vector fields are linearly independent, Grushin points where the two vector fields are collinear but their Lie bracket is not, and tangency points where the two vector fields and their Lie bracket are collinear and the missing direction is obtained with one more bracket.In this paper we consider the problem of finding normal forms and functional invariants at each type of point. We also require that functional invariants are “complete” in the sense that they permit to recognize locally isometric structures.The problem happens to be equivalent to the one of finding a smooth canonical parameterized curve passing through the point and being transversal to the distribution.For Riemannian points such that the gradient of the Gaussian curvature K is different from zero, we use the level set of K as support of the parameterized curve. For Riemannian points such that the gradient of the curvature vanishes (and under additional generic conditions), we use a curve which is found by looking for crests and valleys of the curvature. For Grushin points we use the set where the vector fields are parallel.Tangency points are the most complicated to deal with. The cut locus from the tangency point is not a good candidate as canonical parameterized curve since it is known to be non-smooth. Thus, we analyse the cut locus from the singular set and we prove that it is not smooth either. A good candidate appears to be a curve which is found by looking for crests and valleys of the Gaussian curvature. We prove that the support of such a curve is uniquely determined and has a canonical parametrization.

Lipschitz Classification of Almost-Riemannian Distances on Compact Oriented Surfaces

Two-dimensional almost-Riemannian structures are generalized Riemannian structures on surfaces for which a local orthonormal frame is given by a Lie bracket generating pair of vector fields that can become collinear. We consider the Carnot–Carathéodory distance canonically associated with an almost-Riemannian structure and study the problem of Lipschitz equivalence between two such distances on the same compact oriented surface. We analyze the generic case, allowing in particular for the presence of tangency points, i.e., points where two generators of the distribution and their Lie bracket are linearly dependent. The main result of the paper provides a characterization of the Lipschitz equivalence class of an almost-Riemannian distance in terms of a labeled graph associated with it.

The Laplace-Beltrami operator in almost-Riemannian Geometry

Two-dimensional almost-Riemannian structures are generalized Riemannian structures on surfaces for which a local orthonormal frame is given by a Lie bracket generating pair of vector fields that can become collinear. Generically, the singular set is an embedded one dimensional manifold and there are three type of points: Riemannian points where the two vector fields are linearly independent, Grushin points where the two vector fields are collinear but their Lie bracket is not and tangency points where the two vector fields and their Lie bracket are collinear and the missing direction is obtained with one more bracket. Generically tangency points are isolated. In this paper we study the Laplace-Beltrami operator on such a structure. In the case of a compact orientable surface without tangency points, we prove that the Laplace-Beltrami operator is essentially self-adjoint and has discrete spectrum. As a consequence a quantum particle in such a structure cannot cross the singular set and the heat cannot flow through the singularity. This is an interesting phenomenon since when approaching the singular set (i.e. where the vector fields become collinear), all Riemannian quantities explode, but geodesics are still well defined and can cross the singular set without singularities. This phenomenon appears also in sub-Riemannian structure which are not equiregular i.e. in which the grow vector depends on the point. We show this fact by analyzing the Martinet

Two-dimensional almost-Riemannian structures with tangency points

Two-dimensional almost-Riemannian structures are generalized Riemannian structures on surfaces for which a local orthonormal frame is given by a Lie bracket generating pair of vector fields that can become collinear. We study the relation between the topological invariants of an almost-Riemannian structure on a compact oriented surface and the rank-two vector bundle over the surface which defines the structure. We analyse the generic case including the presence of tangency points, i.e. points where two generators of the distribution and their Lie bracket are linearly dependent. The main result of the paper provides a classification of oriented almost-Riemannian structures on compact oriented surfaces in terms of the Euler number of the vector bundle corresponding to the structure. Moreover, we present a Gauss–Bonnet formula for almost-Riemannian structures with tangency points.

A Gauss-Bonnet-like formula on two-dimensional almost-Riemannian manifolds

We consider a generalization of Riemannian geometry that naturally arises in the framework of control theory. Let $X$ and $Y$ be two smooth vector fields on a two-dimensional manifold $M$. If $X$ and $Y$ are everywhere linearly independent, then they define a classical Riemannian metric on $M$ (the metric for which they are orthonormal) and they give to $M$ the structure of metric space. If $X$ and $Y$ become linearly dependent somewhere on $M$, then the corresponding Riemannian metric has singularities, but under generic conditions the metric structure is still well defined. Metric structures that can be defined locally in this way are called almost-Riemannian structures. They are special cases of \ar s, which are naturally defined in terms of submodules of the space of smooth vector fields on $M$. Almost-Riemannian structures show interesting phenomena, in particular those which concern the relation between curvature, presence of conjugate points, and topology of the manifold. The main result of the paper is a generalization to almost-Riemannian structures of the Gauss-Bonnet formula.

High-order angles in almost-Riemannian geometry

Let X and Y be two smooth vector fields on a two-dimensional manifold M . If X and Y are everywhere linearly independent, then they define a Riemannian metric on M (the metric for which they are orthonormal) and they give to M the structure of metric space. If X and Y become linearly dependent somewhere on M , then the corresponding Riemannian metric has singularities, but under generic conditions the metric structure is still well defined. Metric structures that can be defined locally in this way are called almostRiemannian structures. The main result of the paper is a generalization to almost-Riemannian structures of the Gauss-Bonnet formula for domains with piecewise-C boundary. The main feature of such formula is the presence of terms that play the role of high-order angles at the intersection points with the set of singularities. MSC: 49j15, 53c17 PREPRINT SISSA SISSA 59/2007/M

Almost-Riemannian Structures on Banach Manifolds: The Morse Lemma and the Darboux Theorem

In this paper we introduce the notion of an almost Riemannian manifold. Briefly speaking, an almost-Riemannian structure on a Banach manifold is a generalization of the notion of a Riemannian structure on a Hilbert manifold, common examples would be manifolds of maps modelled on the Sobolev spaces Lkp. The successful use of weak Riemannian structures in hard problems has been given by Ebin [2] and Ebin and Marsden [10].