Related papers: On the Palais-Smale condition in geometric knot th…

We prove the existence of symmetric critical torus knots for O'Hara's knot energy family $E_\alpha$, $\alpha\in (2,3)$ using Palais' classic principle of symmetric criticality. It turns out that in every torus knot class there are at least…

We investigate knot-theoretic properties of geometrically defined curvature energies such as integral Menger curvature. Elementary radii-functions, such as the circumradius of three points, generate a family of knot energies guaranteeing…

We investigate minimizers and critical points for scale-invariant tangent-point energies ${\rm TP}^{p,q}$ of closed curves. We show that a) minimizing sequences in ambient isotopy classes converge to locally critical embeddings in all but…

We present sufficient criteria for the equivalence of tame knots at low regularity. To this end, we introduce a localized version of Gromov's distortion for any closed path-connected subset of $\R^n$. If two such sets have local Gromov…

We generalize the notion of integral Menger curvature introduced by Gonzalez and Maddocks by decoupling the powers in the integrand. This leads to a new two-parameter family of knot energies $intM^{p,q}$. We classify finite-energy curves in…

In this article we introduce and investigate a new two-parameter family of knot energies $TP^{(p,q)}$ that contains the tangent-point energies. These energies are obtained by decoupling the exponents in the numerator and denominator of the…

We discuss a semi-implicit numerical scheme that allows for minimizing the bending energy of curves within certain isotopy classes. To this end we consider a weighted sum of the bending energy and the tangent-point functional. Based on…

We prove the analyticity of smooth critical points for O'Hara's knot energies $\mathcal{E}^{\alpha,p}$, with $p=1$ and $2<\alpha< 3$, subject to a fixed length constraint. This implies, together with the main result in \cite{BR13}, that…

We develop a regularity theory for extremal knots of scale invariant knot energies defined by J. O'hara in 1991. This class contains as a special case the M\"obius energy. For the M\"obius energy, due to the celebrated work of Freedman, He,…

Knot and link energies can be computed from sets of closed curves in three dimensional space, and each type of knot or link has a minimum energy associated with it. Here, we consider embeddings of links that locally or globally minimize the…

A physically natural potential energy for simple closed curves in $\bold R^3$ is shown to be invariant under M\"obius transformations. This leads to the rapid resolution of several open problems: round circles are precisely the absolute…

In the present paper we investigate generalizations of O'Hara's M\"obius energy on curves \cite{ohara_1991a}, to M\"obius-invariant energies on non-smooth subsets of $\R^n$ of arbitrary dimension and co-dimension. In particular, we show…

New results on the groundstate energy of tight, magnetic knots are presented. Magnetic knots are defined as tubular embeddings of the magnetic field in an ideal, perfectly conducting, incompressible fluid. An orthogonal, curvilinear…

We establish long-time existence of Banach gradient flows for generalised integral Menger curvatures and tangent-point energies, and for O'Hara's self-repulsive potentials $E^{\alpha,p}$. In order to do so, we employ the theory of curves of…

In this paper, we establish compactness for various geometric curvature energies including integral Menger curvature, and tangent-point repulsive potentials, defined a priori on the class of compact, embedded $m$-dimensional Lipschitz…

We establish a fundamental connection between smooth and polygonal knot energies, showing that the Minimum Distance Energy for polygons inscribed in a smooth knot converges to the Moebius Energy of the smooth knot as the polygons converge…

In this paper, we propose a discrete version of O'Hara's knot energy defined on polygons embedded in the Euclid space. It is shown that values of the discrete energy of polygons inscribing the curve which has bounded O'Hara's energy…

We introduce and begin the study of new knot energies defined on knot diagrams. Physically, they model the internal energy of thin metallic solid tori squeezed between two parallel planes. Thus the knots considered can perform the second…

Kirchhoff energy is a classical functional on the space of arclength-parameterized framed curves whose critical points approximate configurations of springy elastic rods. We introduce a generalized functional on the space of framed curves…

If K is a rationally null-homologous knot in a 3-manifold M, the rational genus of K is the infimum of -\chi(S)/2p over all embedded orientable surfaces S in the complement of K whose boundary wraps p times around K for some p (hereafter: S…