Partial Lipschitz regularity of the minimum time function for sub-Riemannian control systems

Abstract

In Euclidean space of dimension 2 or 3, we study a minimum time problem associated with a system of real-analytic vector fields satisfying Hörmander's bracket generating condition, where the target is a nonempty closed set. We show that, in dimension 2, the minimum time function is locally Lipschitz continuous while, in dimension 3, it is Lipschitz continuous in the complement of a set of measure zero. In particular, in both cases, the minimum time function is a.e. differentiable on the complement of the target. In dimension 3, in general, there is no hope to have the same regularity result as in dimension 2. Indeed, examples are known (see Remark 6.6 below) where the minimum time function fails to be locally Lipschitz continuous.