Measure contraction properties of Carnot groups

Abstract

We prove that any corank 1 Carnot group of dimension $k+1$ equipped with a left-invariant measure satisfies the $\mathrm{MCP}(K,N)$ if and only if $K\le 0$ and $N\ge k+3$. This generalizes the well known result by Juillet for the Heisenberg group ${\mathbb{H}}_{k+1}$ to a larger class of structures, which admit non-trivial abnormal minimizing curves. The number $k+3$ coincides with the geodesic dimension of the Carnot group, which we define here for a general metric space. We discuss some of its properties, and its relation with the curvature exponent (the least $N$ such that the $\mathrm{MCP}(0,N)$ is satisfied). We prove that, on a metric measure space, the curvature exponent is always larger than the geodesic dimension which, in turn, is larger than the Hausdorff one. When applied to Carnot groups, our results improve a previous lower bound due to Rifford. As a byproduct, we prove that a Carnot group is ideal if and only if it is fat.

17 pages, final version, to appear on "Calculus of Variations and PDEs"