A sub-Riemannian Gauss-Bonnet theorem for surfaces in contact manifolds

Abstract

We obtain a sub-Riemannian version of the classical Gauss-Bonnet theorem. We consider subsurfaces of a three dimensional contact sub-Riemannian manifolds, and using a family of taming Riemannian metric, we obtain a pure sub-Riemannian result in the limit. In particular, we are able to recover topological information of the surface from the geometry around the characteristic set, i.e., the points where the tangent space to the surface and contact structure coincide. We both give a version for surfaces without boundary and surfaces with boundary.

21 pages, 1 figure