Variational problems concerning sub-Finsler metrics in Carnot groups

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the study of geodesic distances defined on a subdomain of a given Carnot group, which are bounded both from above and from below by fixed multiples of the Carnot-Carath\'{e}odory distance. We show that the uniform convergence (on compact sets) of these distances can be equivalently characterized in terms of $\Gamma$-convergence of several kinds of variational problems. Moreover, we investigate the relation between the class of intrinsic distances, their metric derivatives and the sub-Finsler convex metrics defined on the horizontal bundle.