arXiv2023
The gauge invariant elastic metric on the shape space of surfaces involves the mean curvature and the normal deformation, i.e. the sum and the difference of the principal curvatures $κ_1,κ_2$. The proposed gauge invariant elastic metrics on the space of surfaces decorated with curves involve, in addition, the geodesic and normal curvatures $κ_g,κ_n$ of the curve on the surface, as well as the geodesic torsion $τ_g$. More precisely, we show that, with the help of the Euclidean metric, the tangent space at $(C,Σ)$ can be identified with $C^\infty(C)\times C^\infty(Σ)$ and the gauge invariant elastic metrics form a 6-parameter family that we give explicitly.