An intrinsic formulation for rolling pseudo-Riemannian manifolds

Abstract

In the present work we define the rolling of one pseudo-Riemannian manifold over another without slipping and twisting. We compare the definition of the rolling without slipping and twisting of two manifolds isometrically embedded into a pseudo-Euclidean space with the rolling defined only by the intrinsic data, namely by the metric tensors on manifolds. The smooth distribution on the configuration space, encoding the no-slipping and no-twisting kinematic conditions is constructed. Some results concerning the causal character of the rolling curves are also included. Several examples are presented along the paper to illustrate concepts and help to understand the theoretical results.