Ian Adelstein — Page 2

arXiv2015

Existence and Non-existence of Half-Geodesics on $S^2$

In this paper we study half-geodesics, those closed geodesics that minimize on any subinterval of length $l(γ)/2$. For each nonnegative integer $n$, we construct Riemannian manifolds diffeomorphic to $S^2$ admitting exactly $n$ half-geodesics. Additionally, we construct a sequence of Riemannian manifolds, each of which is diffeomorphic to $S^2$ and admits no half-geodesics, yet which converge in the Gromov-Hausdorff sense to a limit space with infinitely many half-geodesics.

math.DG↗

arXiv2014

Minimizing Closed Geodesics via Critical Points of the Uniform Energy

In this paper we study 1/k-geodesics, those closed geodesics that minimize on any subinterval of length $l(γ)/k$. We employ energy methods to provide a relationship between the 1/k-geodesics and what we define as the balanced points of the uniform energy. We show that classes of balanced points of the uniform energy persist under the Gromov-Hausdorff convergence of Riemannian manifolds. Additionally, we relate half-geodesics (1/2-geodesics) to the Grove-Shiohama critical points of the distance function. This relationship affords us the ability to study the behavior of half-geodesics via the well developed field of critical point theory. Along the way we provide a complete characterization of the differentiability of the Riemannian distance function.

math.DG↗