The Asymptotic Development of Paths on Nilmanifolds

Abstract

We prove a new Carnot-scale $n$-step nilpotent $π_1$-de Rham theorem: along every convergent scale sequence, the asymptotic homotopy class of a long trajectory is identified with the nilpotent development of its macroscopic horizontal path. The key analytic mechanism is an asymptotic-development theorem showing that uniform convergence of rescaled horizontal paths, together with a uniform bound on variation, forces uniform, layer-by-layer convergence of their full Carnot-rescaled nilpotent developments. The theorem recovers Schwartzman's theory of asymptotic cycles in step one and the 2-step asymptotic homotopy theory of Benardete and Mitchell in step two, while extending the correspondence to arbitrary nilpotent step.