Related papers: The Carnot-Carath\'eodory distance on $2$-step gro…

In this paper, we use the Carnot-Caratheodory distance from sub-Riemanian geometry to prove entropy decay estimates for all finite dimensional symmetric quantum Markov semigroups. This estimate is independent of the environment size and…

In this paper we study the invariant Carnot-Caratheodory metrics on $SU(2)\simeq S^3$, $SO(3)$ and $SL(2)$ induced by their Cartan decomposition and by the Killing form. Beside computing explicitly geodesics and conjugate loci, we compute…

We prove the coarea formula for sufficiently smooth contact mappings of Carnot manifolds. In particular, we investigate level surfaces of these mappings, and compare Riemannian and sub-Riemannian measures on them. Our main tool is the sharp…

We consider the sub-Riemannian metric $g_{h}$ on $\mathbb{S}^3$ provided by the restriction of the Riemannian metric of curvature 1 to the plane distribution orthogonal to the Hopf vector field. We compute the geodesics associated to the…

We compute the horizontal Hessian of the signed Carnot-Charatheodory distance from a surface S in the Heisenberg group H. The expression for the Hessian is in terms of the surface's intrinsic curvatures. As an application, we compute the…

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…

This paper is devoted to the study of geodesic distances defined on a subdomain of a given Carnot group, which are bounded both from above and from below by fixed multiples of the Carnot-Carath\'{e}odory distance. We show that the uniform…

We introduce the H-type deviation $\delta({\mathbb G})$ of a step two Carnot group ${\mathbb G}$, which measures the deviation of the group from the class of Heisenberg-type groups. We show that $\delta({\mathbb G})=0$ if and only if…

In this article we prove that the codimension of the abnormal set of the endpoint map for certain classes of Carnot groups of step 2 is at least three. Our result applies to all step 2 Carnot groups of dimension up to 7 and is a…

We derive sharp estimates comparing asymptotic Riemannian or sub-Riemannian metrics in 2-step nilpotent Lie groups. For each metric, we construct a Carnot metric whose square remains at bounded distance from the square of the original…

The H-type deviation, $\delta({\mathbb G})$, of a step two Carnot group ${\mathbb G}$ quantifies the extent to which ${\mathbb G}$ deviates from the geometrically and algebraically tractable class of Heisenberg-type (H-type) groups. In an…

In this note, we study the cut locus of the free, step two Carnot groups $\mathbb{G}_k$ with $k$ generators, equipped with their left-invariant Carnot-Carath\'eodory metric. In particular, we disprove the conjectures on the shape of the cut…

We propose a new simple construction of a coupling at a fixed time of two sub-Riemannian Brownian motions on the Heisenberg group and on the free step 2 Carnot groups. The construction is based on a Legendre expansion of the standard…

We prove $L^p$-Hardy inequalities with distance to the boundary for domains in the Heisenberg group ${\mathbb{H}}^n$, $n\geq 1$. Our results are based on a certain geometric condition. This is first implemented for the Euclidean distance in…

Carnot groups are distinguished spaces that are rich of structure: they are those Lie groups equipped with a path distance that is invariant by left-translations of the group and admit automorphisms that are dilations with respect to the…

We study the Sard problem for the endpoint map in some well-known classes of Carnot groups. Our first main result deals with step 2 Carnot groups, where we provide lower bounds (depending only on the algebra of the group) on the codimension…

In this note we prove the following theorem in any Carnot group of step two $\mathbb{G}$: \[ \underset{s\nearrow 1/2}{\lim} (1 - 2s) \mathfrak P_{H,s}(E) = \frac{4}{\sqrt \pi}\ \mathfrak P_H(E). \] Here, $\mathfrak P_H(E)$ represents the…

We consider the Carnot-Carath\'eodory distance $\delta_E$ to a closed set $E$ in the sub-Riemannian Heisenberg groups $\mathbb{H}^n$, $n\ge 1$. The $\mathbb{H}$-regularity of $\delta_E$ is proved under mild conditions involving a general…

We study the subRiemannian cut time and cut locus of a given point in a class of step-2 Carnot groups of Reiter-Heisenberg type. Following the Hamiltonian point of view, we write and analyze extremal curves, getting the cut time of any of…

We study geodesics of the form $\gamma(t)=\pi(\exp(tX)\exp(tY))$, $X,Y\in \fr{g}=\operatorname{Lie}(G)$, in homogeneous spaces $G/K$, where $\pi:G\rightarrow G/K$ is the natural projection. These curves naturally generalise homogeneous…