Integral geometry of unitary area measures

Abstract

The existence of kinematic formulas for area measures with respect to any connected, closed subgroup of the orthogonal group acting transitively on the unit sphere is established. In particular, the kinematic operator for area measures is shown to have the structure of a co-product. In the case of the unitary group the algebra associated to this co-product is described explicitly in terms of generators and relations. As a consequence, a simple algorithm that yields explicit kinematic formulas for unitary area measures is obtained.