arXiv · 2607.21056
Weak elastic energy of rectifiable curves in Riemannian surfaces
Abstract
We introduce a weak elastic energy for rectifiable curves on compact orientable smooth Riemannian surfaces without boundary. The energy is defined by relaxation starting from a notion of $p$-rotation of inscribed geodesic polygonals, that is obtained by a local construction in normalized isothermal coordinates. For every exponent $p>1$, the resulting relaxed functional detects precisely the intrinsic second-order Sobolev regularity of the arc-length parameterization of the curve. Furthermore, when the relaxed energy is finite, it agrees with the integral of the $p$-power of the geodesic curvature.
Explore related subjects
Keep this discovery
Domenico Mucci, Alberto Saracco, Cristian Sopio. 2026-07-23. Weak elastic energy of rectifiable curves in Riemannian surfaces. https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.21056
Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.