Related papers: Local normal forms for geodesically equivalent pse…

We consider a pseudo-Riemannian metric that changes signature along a smooth curve on a surface, called the discriminant curve. The discriminant curve separates the surface locally into a Riemannian and a Lorentzian domain. We study the…

Among (regular, normal) parabolic geometries of type $(G,P)$, there is a locally unique maximally symmetric structure and it has symmetry dimension $\dim(G)$. The symmetry gap problem concerns the determination of the next realizable…

In this paper we extend the Cartan's approach of Riemannian normal coordinates and show that all n-dimensional pseudo-Riemannian metrics are conformal to a flat manifold, when, in normal coordinates, they are well-behaved in the origin and…

We study the regularity and branching of strictly abnormal minimizing geodesics in sub-Riemannian geometry. We construct examples of real-analytic sub-Riemannian manifolds admitting minimizing geodesics that lose regularity at an interior…

The question whether a Riemannian manifold is geodesically connected can be studied from geometrical as well as variational methods, and accurate results can be obtained by using the associated distance and related properties of the…

We establish normal forms for conformal vector fields on pseudo-Riemannian manifolds in the neighborhood of a singularity. For real-analytic Lorentzian manifolds, we show that the vector field is analytically linearizable or the manifold is…

In this survey article we gather classical as well as recent results on minimal geodesics of Riemannian or Finsler metrics, giving special attention to the two-dimensional case. Moreover, we present open problems together with some first…

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.…

Let $(M, g)$ be a compact real analytic Riemannian manifold and $\pi \colon \widetilde{M} \to M$ its universal cover. Assume that $\widetilde{M}$ can be realised as a manifold definable in an o-minimal structure $\Sigma$ expanding…

In this paper we obtain an existence theorem for normal geodesics joining two given submanifolds in a globally hyperbolic stationary spacetime. The proof is based on both variational and geometric arguments involving the causal structure of…

In this paper we analyze the local and global boundary rigidity problem for general Riemannian manifolds with boundary $(M,g)$. We show that the boundary distance function, i.e., $d_g|_{\partial M\times\partial M}$, known near a point $p\in…

We prove the semi-Riemannian bumpy metric theorem using equivariant variational genericity. The theorem states that, on a given compact manifold $M$, the set of semi-Riemannian metrics that admit only nondegenerate closed geodesics is…

We consider the group of sense-preserving diffeomorphisms $\Diff S^1$ of the unit circle and its central extension, the Virasoro-Bott group, with their respective horizontal distributions chosen to be Ehresmann connections with respect to a…

We analyze sub-Riemannian and lightlike metrics from the point of view of their rigidity as geometric structures. Following Cartan's and Gromov's formal definitions, they are never rigid, yet, in generic cases, they naturally give rise to…

Let $(M,g)$ be a Riemannian manifold with a distinguished point $O$ and assume that the geodesic distance $d$ from $O$ is an isoparametric function. Let $\Omega\subset M$ be a bounded domain, with $O \in \Omega$, and consider the problem…

We prove that the geodesic equation for any semi-Riemannian metric of regularity $C^{0,1}$ possesses $C^1$-solutions in the sense of Filippov.

In the present article the geometry of semi-Riemannian manifolds with nonholonomic constraints is studied. These manifolds can be considered as analogues to the sub-Riemannian manifolds, where the positively definite metric is substituted…

The authors compute distances between arbitrary elements of Lie groups SU(2) and SO(3) for special left-invariant sub-Riemannian metrics $\rho$ and $d$. To compute distances for the second metric, we essentially use the fact that canonical…

It is well-known that normal extremals in sub-Riemannian geometry are curves which locally minimize the energy functional. Most proofs of this fact do not make, however, an explicit use of relations between local optimality and the geometry…

Considering Riemannian submersions, we find necessary and sufficient conditions for when sub-Riemannian normal geodesics project to curves of constant first geodesic curvature or constant first and vanishing second geodesic curvatures. We…