Related papers: Min-max for sweepouts by curves

We consider the problem of finding embedded closed geodesics on the two-sphere with an incomplete metric defined outside a point. Various techniques including curve shortening methods are used.

This paper proves an elementary topological fact about closed curves on surfaces, namely that by carefully smoothing an intersection point, one can reduce self-intersection by exactly $1$. This immediately implies a positive answer to a…

This article investigates when homotopies can be converted to monotone homotopies without increasing the lengths of curves. A monotone homotopy is one which consists of curves which are simple or constant, and in which curves are pairwise…

We prove that if $(M,g)$ is a topological 3-ball with a $C^4$-smooth Riemannian metric $g$, and mean-convex boundary $\partial M$ then knowledge of least areas circumscribed by simple closed curves $\gamma \subset \partial M$ uniquely…

Given a Riemannian manifold and a closed submanifold, we find a geodesic segment with free boundary on the given submanifold. This is a corollary of the min-max theory which we develop in this article for the free boundary variational…

We employ the curve shortening flow to establish three new results on the dynamics of geodesic flows of closed Riemannian surfaces. The first one is the stability, under $C^0$-small perturbations of the Riemannian metric, of certain flat…

Reparametrization invariant Sobolev metrics on spaces of regular curves have been shown to be of importance in the field of mathematical shape analysis. For practical applications, one usually discretizes the space of smooth curves and…

We study shortest curves in proximally smooth subsets of a Hilbert space. We consider an $R$-proximally smooth set $A$ in a Hilbert space with points $a$ and $b$ satisfying $\left|{a-b}\right| < 2R.$ We provide a simple geometric algorithm…

We develop a Morse-Lusternik-Schnirelmann theory for the distance between two points of a smoothly embedded circle in a complete Riemannian manifold. This theory suggests very naturally a definition of width that generalises the classical…

We observe that the maximal open set of constant curvature k in a Riemannian manifold with curvature bounded below or above by k has a convexity type property, which we call "two-convexity". This statement is used to prove a number of…

We describe all local Riemannian metrics on surfaces whose geodesic flows are superintegrable with one integral linear in momenta and one integral cubic in momenta. We also show that some of these metrics can be extended to the 2-sphere.…

The Riemannian manifold of curves with a Sobolev metric is an important and frequently studied model in the theory of shape spaces. Various numerical approaches have been proposed to compute geodesics, but so far elude a rigorous…

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…

We prove that a riemannian metric on the 2-sphere or the projective plane can be C2-approximated by a smooth metric whose geodesic flow has an elliptic closed geodesic.

Considering Riemannian submersions, we find necessary and sufficient conditions for when sub-Riemannian normal geodesics project to curves of constant first geodesic curvature or constant first and vanishing second geodesic curvatures. We…

We investigate the rudiments of Riemannian geometry on orbit spaces $M/G$ for isometric proper actions of Lie groups on Riemannian manifolds. Minimal geodesic arcs are length minimising curves in the metric space $M/G$ and they can hit…

The question of whether a closed Riemannian manifold has infinitely many geometrically distinct closed geodesics has a long history. Though unsolved in general, it is well understood in the case of surfaces. For surfaces of revolution…

Minimal surfaces in the Riemannian product of surfaces of constant curvature have been considered recently, particularly as these products arise as spaces of oriented geodesics of 3-dimensional space-forms. This papers considers more…

We give a sharp lower bound on the area of the domain enclosed by an embedded curve lying on a two-dimensional sphere, provided that geodesic curvature of this curve is bounded from below. Furthermore, we prove some dual inequalities for…

Let $M$ be a Riemannian $2$-sphere. A classical theorem of Lyusternik and Shnirelman asserts the existence of three distinct simple non-trivial periodic geodesics on $M$. In this paper we prove that there exist three simple periodic…