Corners in non-equiregular sub-Riemannian manifolds
We prove that in a class of non-equiregular sub-Riemannian manifolds corners are not length minimizing. This extends the results of (G.P. Leonardi and R. Monti, Geom. Funct. Anal. 18 (2008) 552-582). As an application of our main result we complete and simplify the analysis in (R. Monti, Ann. Mat. Pura Appl. (2013)), showing that in a 4-dimensional sub-Riemannian structure suggested by Agrachev and Gauthier all length-minimizing curves are smooth. Mathematics Subject Classification. 53C17, 49K21, 49J15.
Extremal polynomials in stratified groups
We introduce a family of extremal polynomials associated with the prolongation of a stratified nilpotent Lie algebra. These polynomials are related to a new algebraic characterization of abnormal subriemannian geodesics in stratified nilpotent Lie groups. They satisfy a set of remarkable structure relations that are used to integrate the adjoint equations.