The main purpose of this thesis is to extend methods and results of geometric measure theory to the geometries of sub-riemannian groups. Typical features of sub-riemannian structures historically appeared in several fields of mathematics. Perhaps, the first seeds can be found in the 1909 work by Caratheodory on the second principle of thermodynamics. The Caratheodory theorem can be generalized to distributions of any codimension, whose Lie algebra generates the tangent space at each point. The condition on the distribution is known in Nonholonomic Mechanics, subelliptic PDE's and Optimal Control Theory as total nonholonomicity, Hormander condition, bracket generating condition or Chow condition.
- ISBN13 9788876421525
- Publish Date 1 October 2003
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 30 June 2021
- Publish Country IT
- Publisher Birkhauser Verlag AG
- Imprint Scuola Normale Superiore
- Format Paperback
- Pages 195
- Language English