Quasigeodesics on the Cube
Abstract
A quasigeodesic is a curve on the surface of a convex polyhedron that has surface to each side at every point. In contrast, a geodesic has exactly to each side and so can never pass through a vertex, whereas quasigeodesics can. Although it is known that every convex polyhedron has at least three simple closed quasigeodesics, little else is known. Only tetrahedra have been thoroughly studied. In this paper we explore the quasigeodesics on a cube, which have not been previously enumerated. We prove that the cube has exactly simple closed quasigeodesics (beyond the three known simple closed geodesics). For the lower bound we detail simple closed quasigeodesics. Our main contribution is establishing a matching upper bound. For general convex polyhedra, there is no known upper bound.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2503.10376,
title = {Quasigeodesics on the Cube},
author = {MIT CompGeom Group and Hugo A. Akitaya and Erik D. Demaine and Adam Hesterberg and Thomas C. Hull and Anna Lubiw and Jayson Lynch and Klara Mundilova and Chie Nara and Joseph O'Rourke and Frederick Stock and Josef Tkadlec and Ryuhei Uehara},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.10376},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
15 pages, 11 figures, 13 references