English

Closed geodesics on orbifolds

Differential Geometry 2007-05-23 v2 Algebraic Geometry Algebraic Topology Metric Geometry

Abstract

In this paper, we try to generalize to the case of compact Riemannian orbifolds QQ some classical results about the existence of closed geodesics of positive length on compact Riemannian manifolds MM. We shall also consider the problem of the existence of infinitely many geometrically distinct closed geodesics. In the classical case the solution of those problems involve the consideration of the homotopy groups of MM and the homology properties of the free loop space on MM(Morse theory). Those notions have their analogue in the case of orbifolds (see [7]). The main part of this paper will be to recall those notions and to show how the classical techniques can be adapted to the case of orbifolds.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.math/0306238,
  title  = {Closed geodesics on orbifolds},
  author = {K. Guruprasad and A. Haefliger},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/0306238},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

Improved version which takes into account the comments of the refree. In particular, we extend to compact simply connected Riemannian orbifolds the result of Gromoll-Meyer