Related papers: Smoothing curves carefully
We study the relationship between the lengths of closed geodesics on hyperbolic surfaces and their topological complexity, measured by the self-intersection number. In particular, we provide explicit upper bounds for the length $s_k(X)$ of…
We study the geometric and combinatorial effect of smoothing an intersection point in a collection of arcs or curves on a surface. We prove that all taut arcs with fixed endpoints and all taut 1-manifolds with at least two non-disjoint…
We give necessary and sufficient topological conditions for a simple closed curve on a real rational surface to be approximable by smooth rational curves. We also study approximation by smooth rational curves with given complex…
Any finite configuration of curves with minimal intersections on a surface is a configuration of shortest geodesics for some Riemannian metric on the surface. The metric can be chosen to make the lengths of these geodesics equal to the…
This paper explores the relationship between closed curves on surfaces and their intersections. Like Dehn-Thurston coordinates for simple curves, we explore how to determine closed curves using the number of times they intersect other…
This article deals with the set of closed geodesics on complete finite type hyperbolic surfaces. For any non-negative integer $k$, we consider the set of closed geodesics that self-intersect at least $k$ times, and investigate those of…
We consider systems of simple closed curves on surfaces and their total number of intersection points, their so-called crossing number. For a fixed number of curves, we aim to minimise the crossing number. We determine the minimal crossing…
In the mid eighties Goldman proved an embedded curve could be isotoped to not intersect a closed geodesic if and only if their Lie bracket (as defined in that work) vanished. Goldman asked for a topological proof and about extensions of the…
Our main point of focus is the set of closed geodesics on hyperbolic surfaces. For any fixed integer $k$, we are interested in the set of all closed geodesics with at least $k$ (but possibly more) self-intersections. Among these, we…
The mapping class group of a surface $\S$ acts on the set of closed geodesics on $\S$. This action preserves self-intersection number. In this paper, we count the orbits of curves with at most $K$ self-intersections, for each $K \geq 1$.…
We uncover some connections between the topology of a complete Riemannian surface M and the minimum number of vertices, i.e., critical points of geodesic curvature, of closed curves in M. In particular we show that the space forms with…
On a hyperbolic Riemann surface, given two simple closed geodesics that intersect $n$ times, we address the question of a sharp lower bound $L_n$ on the length attained by the longest of the two geodesics. We show the existence of a surface…
Oriented closed curves on an orientable surface with boundary are described up to continuous deformation by reduced cyclic words in the generators of the fundamental group and their inverses. By self-intersection number one means the…
The geometric intersection number of a curve on a surface is the minimal number of self-intersections of any homotopic curve, i.e. of any curve obtained by continuous deformation. Given a curve $c$ represented by a closed walk of length at…
We prove that the minimal length of a closed geodesic with self-intersection number $k$ on any finite-type hyperbolic surface is $2\cosh^{-1}(1+2k)$ for $k>1750$. This improves the previously known threshold $k > 10^{13350}$. Our proof is…
We study mapping class group orbits of homotopy and isotopy classes of curves with self-intersections. We exhibit the asymptotics of the number of such orbits of curves with a bounded number of self-intersections, as the complexity of the…
A surface embedded in space, in such a way that each point has a neighborhood within which the surface is a terrain, projects to an immersed surface in the plane, the boundary of which is a self-intersecting curve. Under what circumstances…
This article shows that for generic choice of Riemannian metric on a smooth manifold $M$ of dimension four, all prime compact parametrized minimal surfaces within $M$ have self-intersections in general position in the following sense:…
We give a lower bound on the number of non-simple closed curves on a hyperbolic surface, given upper bounds on both length and self-intersection number. In particular, we carefully show how to construct closed geodesics on pairs of pants,…
We give bounds on the number of non-simple closed curves on a negatively curved surface, given upper bounds on both length and self-intersection number. In particular, it was previously known that the number of all closed curves of length…