Oriented Area as a Morse Function on Polygon Spaces
Daniil Mamaev
备注：
14 pages, 2 figures The difference from the previous version: minor changes in the structure of the document; the proof of Lemma 11 (which is now Lemma 4.7) is corrected; two pictures added
发表信息：
ARS MATHEMATICA CONTEMPORANEA, 19(1), 155-171 (2020)
We study polygon spaces arising from planar configurations of necklaces with some of the beads fixed and some of the beads sliding freely. These spaces include configuration spaces of flexible polygons and some other natural polygon spaces. We characterise critical points of the oriented area function in geometric terms and give a formula for the Morse indices. Thus we obtain a generalisation of isoperimetric theorems for polygons in the plane.
We show that an appropriate generalization of the oriented area function is a perfect Morse function on the space of three-dimensional configurations of an equilateral polygonal linkage with odd number of edges. Therefore cyclic equilateral polygons (which appear as Morse points) are interpreted as independent generators of the homology groups of the (decorated) configuration space.
We describe the configuration space $\mathbf{S}$ of polygons with prescribed edge slopes, and study the perimeter $\mathcal{P}$ as a Morse function on $\mathbf{S}$. We characterize critical points of $\mathcal{P}$ (these are \textit{tangential} polygons) and compute their Morse indices. This setup is motivated by a number of results about critical points and Morse indices of the oriented area function defined on the configuration space of polygons with prescribed edge lengths (flexible polygons). As a by-product, we present an independent computation of the Morse index of the area function (ob…
The oriented area function $A$ is (generically) a Morse function on the space of planar configurations of a polygonal linkage. We are lucky to have an easy description of its critical points as cyclic polygons and a simple formula for the Morse index of a critical point. However, for planar polygons, the function $A$ in many cases is not a perfect Morse function. In particular, for an equilateral pentagonal linkage it has one extra local maximum (except for the global maximum) and one extra local minimum. In the present paper we consider the space of 3D configurations of a polygonal linkage. F…
We study configuration spaces of linkages whose underlying graph are polygons with diagonal constrains, or more general, partial two-trees. We show that (with an appropriate definition) the oriented area is a Bott-Morse function on the configuration space. Its critical points are described and Bott-Morse indices are computed. This paper is a generalization of analogous results for polygonal linkages (obtained earlier by G. Khimshiashvili, G. Panina, and A. Zhukova).
Morse theory and moduli spaces of simple polylines and polygons
Beijing International Center for Mathematical Research, Peking University（北京大学北京国际数学研究中心）；School of Mathematics, Hunan University（湖南大学数学学院）；School of Mathematical Sciences, Shenzhen University（深圳大学数学科学学院）
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Random walks and polygons are used to model polymers. In this paper we consider the extension of writhe, self-linking number and linking number to open chains. We then study the average writhe, self-linking and linking number of random walks and polygons over the space of configurations as a function of their length. We show that the mean squared linking number, the mean squared writhe and the mean squared self-linking number of oriented uniform random walks or polygons of length $n$, in a convex confined space, are of the form $O(n^2)$. Moreover, for a fixed simple closed curve in a convex co…
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