English

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 MM. 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 dd of MM. We show that at any point pp on MM there exist at least two distinct simple geodesic loops (geodesic segments that start and end at pp) whose lengths are respectively bounded by 8d8d and 14d14d.

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

R2 v1 2026-06-28T17:44:37.791Z