Vertices of closed curves in Riemannian surfaces (Q1955665)

The author presents some connections between the topology of a complete Riemannian surface \(M\) and the minimum number of vertices, i.e., critical points of the geodesic curvature, of closed curves in \(M\). In particular he shows that the space forms with finite fundamental group are the only surfaces in which every simple closed curve has more than two vertices. Further, he characterizes the simply connected space forms as the only surfaces in which every closed curve bounding a compact immersed surface has more than two vertices.