The total mixed curvature of open curves in \(E^3\) (Q1646632)

The total mixed curvature (TMC) of a curve in \(E^3\) is defined as the integral of \(\sqrt{\kappa^2+\tau^2}\) where \(\kappa\) is the curvature and \(\tau\) is the torsion. The authors study the infimum of TMC for open curves whose endpoints and principal normal vectors at the endpoints are prescribed. When points \(p\) and \(q\) in \(E^3\) and unit vectors \(Np\) and \(Nq\) are given, they denote by \(C(p,q,Np,Nq)\) the set of all curves whose endpoints are \(p\) and \(q\), principal normal vector at \(p\) is \(Np\) and principal normal vector at \(q\) is \(Nq\). Then, for any \(\sum\in C(p,q,Np,Nq)\), they show that \(\mathrm{TMC}(\sum)\geq\angle(N_p,N_q)\) and if a curve \(\sum\) with \(\mathrm{TMC}(\sum)=\angle(N_p,N_q)\) exists in \(C(p,q,Np,Nq)\), it must be either a plane curve or a subarc of a general helix (Theorem 1). In the general setting, there may not exist a curve with \(\mathrm{TMC}(\sum)=\angle(N_p,N_q)\) in \(C(p,q,Np,Nq)\), but they show that there always exists a curve which consists of plane curves and subarcs of general helices and has TMC arbitrarily close to the infimum of TMC in \(C(p,q,Np,Nq)\) (Theorem 4).