Related papers: Circles Minimize most Knot Energies

We investigate the elastic behavior of knotted loops of springy wire. To this end we minimize the classic bending energy $E_{\text{bend}}=\int\kappa^2$ together with a small multiple of ropelength $\mathcal R=\text{length}/\text{thickness}$…

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…

A new type of knot energy is presented via real life experiments involving a thin resilient metallic tube. Knotted in different ways, the device mechanically acquires a uniquely determined (up to isometry) normal form at least when the…

We report on the geometry and mechanics of knotted stiff strings. We discuss both closed and open knots. Our two main results are: (i) Their equilibrium energy as well as the equilibrium tension for open knots depend on the type of knot as…

Probably the most natural energy functional to be considered for knotted strings is the one given by the electrostatic repulsion. In the absence of counter-charges, a charged, knotted string evolving along the energy gradient of…

We derive a new class of one-loop non-renormalization theorems that strongly constrain the running of higher dimension operators in a general four-dimensional quantum field theory. Our logic follows from unitarity: cuts of one-loop…

We study three well known models of matter coupled to the ultraviolet cutoff, quantized radiation field and to the Coulomb potential of arbitrarily many nuclei. Two are nonrelativistic: the first uses the kinetic energy (p+eA(x))^2 and the…

We study the energy function of the Kuramoto model in random geometric graphs defined in the unit circle as the number of nodes diverges. We prove the existence of at least one local minimum for each winding number $q \in \mathbb{Z}$ with…

We show that the elastic energy $E(\gamma)$ of a closed curve $\gamma$ has a minimizer among all plane simple regular closed curves of given enclosed area $A(\gamma)$, and that the minimum is attained for a circle. The proof is of a…

Previous work has shown that if an attractive 1/r^2 potential is regularized at short distances by a spherical square-well potential, renormalization allows multiple solutions for the depth of the square well. The depth can be chosen to be…

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 investigate discrete logarithmic energy problems in the unit circle. We study the equilibrium configuration of $n$ electrons and $n-1$ pairs of external protons of charge $+1/2$. It is shown that all the critical points of…

A new form of the Wilson renormalization group equation is derived, in which the flow equations are, up to linear terms, proportional to a gradient flow. A set of co\"ordinates is found in which the flow of marginal, low-energy, couplings…

Inspired by the Thomson problem in physics where the distribution of multiple propelling electrons on a unit sphere can be modeled via minimizing some potential energy, hyperspherical energy minimization has demonstrated its potential in…

In this article we investigate regular curves whose derivatives have vanishing mean oscillations. We show that smoothing these curves using a standard mollifier one gets regular curves again. We apply this result to solve a couple of open…

We prove reversed Hardy-Littlewood-Sobolev inequalities by carefully studying the natural associated free energies with direct methods of calculus of variations. Tightness is obtained by a dyadic argument, which quantifies the relative…

We consider energy-minimizing divergence-free eigenfields of the curl operator in dimension three from the perspective of contact topology. We give a negative answer to a question of Etnyre and the first author by constructing curl…

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 study classically unstable string type configurations and compute the renormalized vacuum polarization energies that arise from fermion fluctuations in a 2+1 dimensional analog of the standard model. We then search for a minimum of the…

We minimise the Canham-Helfrich energy in the class of closed immersions with prescribed genus, surface area and enclosed volume. Compactness is achieved in the class of oriented varifolds. The main result is a lower-semicontinuity estimate…