Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Geometry Of Sub-Finsler Engel Manifolds, Jeanne N. Clelland, Christopher G. Moseley, George R. Wilkens

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

We analyze the geometry of sub-Finsler Engel manifolds, computing a complete set of local invariants for a large class of these manifolds. We derive geodesic equations for regular geodesics and show that in the symmetric case, the rigid curves are local minimizers. We end by illustrating our results with an example.