A Riemannian manifold is said to be uniformly secure if there is a finite number $s$ such that all geodesics connecting an arbitrary pair of points in the manifold can be blocked by $s$ point obstacles. We prove that the number of geodesics with length $\leq T$ between every pair of points in a uniformly secure manifold grows polynomially as $T \to \infty$. We derive from this that a compact Riemannian manifold with no conjugate points whose geodesic flow has positive topological entropy is totally insecure: the geodesics between any pair of points cannot be blocked by a finite number of point obstacles.
A pair of points in a riemannian manifold $M$ is secure if the geodesics between the points can be blocked by a finite number of point obstacles; otherwise the pair of points is insecure. A manifold is secure if all pairs of points in $M$ are secure. A manifold is insecure if there exists an insecure point pair, and totally insecure if all point pairs are insecure. Compact, flat manifolds are secure. A standing conjecture says that these are the only secure, compact riemannian manifolds. We prove this for surfaces of genus greater than zero. We also prove that a closed surface of genus greater…
A celebrated result due to Poincaré affirms that a closed non-degenerate minimizing geodesic $γ$ on an oriented Riemannian surface is hyperbolic. Starting from this classical theorem, our first main result is a general instability criterion for timelike and spacelike closed semi-Riemannian geodesics on a (non)oriented manifold. A key role is played by the spectral index, a new topological invariant that we define through the spectral flow (being the Morse index truly infinite) of a path of selfadjoint Fredholm operators. A major step in the proof of this result is a em new spectral flow formul…
Let M be a possibly non compact smooth manifold. We study genericity in the C^k-topology (3<=k<=+infty) of nondegeneracy properties of semi-Riemannian geodesic flows on M. Namely, we prove a new version of the Bumpy Metric Theorem for a such M and also genericity of metrics that do not possess any degenerate geodesics satisfying suitable endpoints conditions. This extends results in the literature for geodesics with fixed endpoints to the case where endpoints lie on a compact submanifold P of MxM that satisfies an admissibility condition. Immediate consequences are generic non conjugacy betwee…
We prove Wadsley's theorem for foliations by closed non-lightlike geodesics. As an application we show that every pseudo-Riemannian and non-Riemannian 2-mainfold, all of whose time- or spacelike geodesics are closed, is diffeomorphic to $S^1\times \R$. Further we show that every pseudo-Riemannian 2-manifold with index 1 contains a non-closed timelike or spacelike geodesic.
The study of solutions with fixed energy of certain classes of Lagrangian (or Hamiltonian) systems is reduced, via the classical Maupertuis--Jacobi variational principle, to the study of geodesics in Riemannian manifolds. We are interested in investigating the problem of existence of brake orbits and homoclinic orbits, in which case the Maupertuis--Jacobi principle produces a Riemannian manifold with boundary and with metric degenerating in a non trivial way on the boundary. In this paper we use the classical Maupertuis--Jacobi principle to show how to remove the degeneration of the metric on …
We construct Riemannian manifolds with completely integrable geodesic flows, in particular various nonhomogeneous examples. The methods employed are a modification of Thimm's method, Riemannian submersions and connected sums.
Let (T^2, g) be a two-dimensional Riemannian torus. In this paper we prove that the topological entropy of the geodesic flow restricted to the set of initial conditions of minimal geodesics vanishes, independent of the choice of the Riemannian metric.
We define the notion of a smooth pseudo-Riemannian algebraic variety $(X,g)$ over a field $k$ of characteristic $0$, which is an algebraic analogue of the notion of Riemannian manifold and we study, from a model-theoretic perspective, the algebraic differential equation describing the geodesics on $(X,g)$. When $k$ is the field of real numbers, we prove that if the real points of $X$ are Zariski-dense in $X$ and if the real analytification of $(X,g)$ is a compact Riemannian manifold with negative curvature, then the algebraic differential equation describing the geodesics on $(X,g)$ is absolut…
The paper surveys open problems and questions related to geodesics defined by Riemannian, Finsler, semi Riemannian and magnetic structures on manifolds.
The goal of this paper is to study periodic geodesics for sub-Riemannian metrics on a contact 3D-manifold.We develop two rather independent subjects:1) The existence of closed geodesics spiraling around periodic Reeb orbits for a generic metric.2) The precise study of the periodic geodesics for a right invariant metric on a quotient of SL2(R)
We use nonsmooth critical point theory and the theory of geodesics with obstacle to show a multiplicity result about orthogonal geodesic chords in a Riemannian manifold (with boundary) which is homeomorphic to an $N$-disk. This applies to brake orbits in a potential well of a natural Hamiltonian system, providing a further step towards the proof of a celebrated conjecture by Seifert.
We revisit an example of a semi-Riemannian geodesic that was discussed by Musso, Pejsachowicz and Portaluri in 2007 to show that not every conjugate point is a bifurcation point. We point out a mistake in their argument, showing that on this geodesic actually every conjugate point is a bifurcation point. Finally, we provide an improved example which yields that the claim in our title is nevertheless true.
Let $M$ be a compact $C^{\infty}$ Riemannian manifold. Given $p$ and $q$ in $M$ and $T>0$, define $n_{T}(p,q)$ as the number of geodesic segments joining $p$ and $q$ with length $\leq T$. Mañé showed that the exponential growth rate of the integral of $n_{T}(p,q)$ over $M \times M$ is the topological entropy of the geodesic flow of $M$. In the present paper we exhibit an open set of metrics on the two-sphere for which the exponential growth rate of $n_{T}(p,q$ is less than the topological entropy of the geodesic flow for a positive measure set of $(p,q)\in M\times M$. This answers in the negat…
In this paper we give a proof of the existence of an orthogonal geodesic chord on a Riemannian manifold homeomorphic to a closed disk and with concave boundary. This kind of study is motivated by the link of the multiplicity problem with the famous Seifert conjecture (formulated in 1948) about multiple brake orbits for a class of Hamiltonian systems at a fixed energy level.
In this article, we give a growth rate about the number of periodic orbits in the Franks type theorem obtained by the authors \cite{LWY}. As applications, we prove the following two results: there exist infinitely many distinct non-contractible closed geodesics on $\mathbb{R}P^2$ endowed with a Riemannian metric such that its Gaussian curvature is positive, moreover, the number of non-contractible closed geodesics of length $\leq l$ grows at least like $l^2$; and there exist either two or infinitely many distinct non-contractible closed geodesics on Finsler $\mathbb{R}P^2$ with reversibility $…
Motivated by a paper of Bolsinov and Taimanov DG/9911193 we consider non-holonomic situation and exhibit examples of sub-Riemannian metrics with integrable geodesic flows and positive topological entropy. Moreover the Riemannian examples are obtained as "holonomization" of sub-Riemannian ones. A feature of non-holonomic situation is non-compactness of the phase space. We also exhibit a Liouvulle-integrable Hamiltonian system with topological entropy of all integrals positive.
This paper is a review of recent and classical results on integrable geodesic flows on Riemannian manifolds and topological obstructions to integrability. We also discuss some open problems.
Enlightened by the similar equation form between the GCHS \footnote{GCHS: Generalized Covariant Hamilton System\\GSPB:Generalized structural Poisson bracket} defined by the GSPB and the geodesic equation expressed by geospin variable, we find a deep connection between the geospin matrix and S-dynamics. In this contrastive way, we actually proves that the GCHS is a compatible theory suitable for the curved spacetime as primitively stated. By contrast, geospin matrix in Riemannian geometry has the same physical nature as S-dynamics in GCHS. We obtain a fact that geodesic equation can be naturall…
