Short Simple Geodesic Loops on a 2-Sphere
Differential Geometry
2025-11-13 v2
Abstract
The classic Lusternik--Schnirelmann theorem states that there are three distinct simple periodic geodesics on any Riemannian 2-sphere . It has been proven by Y. Liokumovich, A. Nabutovsky and R. Rotman that the shortest three such curves have lengths bounded in terms of the diameter of . We show that at any point on there exist at least two distinct simple geodesic loops (geodesic segments that start and end at ) whose lengths are respectively bounded by and .
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2407.12673,
title = {Short Simple Geodesic Loops on a 2-Sphere},
author = {Isabel Beach},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2407.12673},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
31 pages, 10 figures. New peer-reviewed version