General criteria for curves to be simple (Q1748349)

An application of the Schwarzian derivative, \[ S(f)=\frac{f'''}{f'}-\frac{3}{2}(\frac{f''}{f'})^2, \] of a function \(f\) is the fact that it measures the deviations from being Möbius. A Möbius mapping is in some sense a conformal mapping which carries geodesic circles into geodesic circles, called concircular transformation in Yano's language. It gives also information about both the local and global behavior of conformal transformations. In 2003, the present author, in a joint work, found an injectivity criterion for a simple curve \(f:(1;1)\rightarrow \mathbb{R}^n\). In the context of curves in space he used corresponding versions of the Schwarzian derivative due to Ahlfors as follows: \[ S_1(f)=\frac{<f',f'''>}{|f'|^2}-3\frac{<f',f''>^2}{|f'|^4}+\frac{3}{2}\frac{|f''|^2}{|f'|^2}, \] and \[ S_2(f)=\frac{f'\wedge f'''}{|f'|^2}-3\frac{<f',f''>}{|f'|^4}f'\wedge f'', \] where, \(< , >\) denotes the standard inner product in \(\mathbb{R}^n\), and for two vectors \(a\) and \(b\) in \(\mathbb{R}^n\), \(a\wedge b\) is the antisymmetric bivector with components \((a\wedge b)_{ij} = a_ib_j-a_jb_i\) and norm \((\sum_{i<j}(a_ib_j - a_jb_i)^2)^{1/2}.\) In the paper under review, the author generalizes the results of the last joint paper by using an interesting equivalent form for \(S_1(f)\) using the curvature of a curve \(k\) in the following form; \[ S_1(f)=\big(\frac{v'}{v}\big)'-\frac{1}{2}\big(\frac{v'}{v}\big)^2+\frac{1}{2}v^2k^2, \] where \(v = |f'|\). The purpose of this article is to present a new condition depending on Ahlfors' Schwarzian derivative, where the author considers a conformal metric on a given interval and a new diameter and establishes an injectivity condition for parametrized curves. Next he derives some interesting applications.