English

Solitons of the midpoint mapping and affine curvature

Differential Geometry 2020-07-29 v1 Metric Geometry

Abstract

For a polygon x=(xj)jZx=(x_j)_{j\in \mathbb{Z}} in Rn\mathbb{R}^n we consider the midpoints polygon (M(x))j=(xj+xj+1)/2.(M(x))_j=\left(x_j+x_{j+1}\right)/2\,. We call a polygon a soliton of the midpoints mapping MM if its midpoints polygon is the image of the polygon under an invertible affine map. We show that a large class of these polygons lie on an orbit of a one-parameter subgroup of the affine group acting on Rn.\mathbb{R}^n. These smooth curves are also characterized as solutions of the differential equation c˙(t)=Bc(t)+d\dot{c}(t)=Bc (t)+d for a matrix BB and a vector d.d. For n=2n=2 these curves are curves of constant generalized-affine curvature kga=kga(B)k_{ga}=k_{ga}(B) depending on BB parametrized by generalized-affine arc length unless they are parametrizations of a parabola, an ellipse, or a hyperbola.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2007.14067,
  title  = {Solitons of the midpoint mapping and affine curvature},
  author = {Christine Rademacher and Hans-Bert Rademacher},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2007.14067},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

16 pages, 2 figures