Journal of Lie Theory 15 (2005), No. 1, 341--356
Copyright Heldermann Verlag 2005
Jet Spaces as Nonrigid Carnot Groups
Ben Warhurst
School of Mathematics, UNSW, Sydney 2052, Australia
warhurst@maths.unsw.edu.au
We define a product on the jet spaces Jk(Rm , Rn) which makes them Carnot groups. The Carnot group contact structure coincides with the classical contact structure in the Lie-Bäcklund setting. Therefore, by prolongation, they are nonrigid Carnot groups, meaning that the space of contact maps is infinite dimensional. We also show that strata dimensions are not rigidity invariants. This is demonstrated by constructing two distinct Carnot groups with strata dimensions (3, 2, 1) but with opposite rigidity.
Keywords: Carnot group, jet space, rigidity.
MSC: 53C24; 22E25
[ Fulltext-pdf (229 KB)] for subscribers only.