The geometry of polygons in \(\mathbb{R}^5\) and quaternions (Q1827425)

The class of spaces of polygons and linkages is the example of geometric objects whose structures can be effectively visualized by using their linkages. For example, the spaces of polygons \(\mathcal M^{(3)}_ r\) with fixed side lengths in three-dimensional Euclidean space \(\mathbb E^ 3\) carry symplectic and Kähler structures. In this paper, the authors study the moduli space \(\mathcal M_ r\) of polygons with fixed side lengths in five-dimensional Euclidean space \(\mathbb E^ 5\) and relate them to certain quotients of products of quaternionic projective lines by the diagonal action of SL\((2,\mathbb H)\). The spaces \(\mathcal M_ r\) turn out to be singular. The local structures of these singularities are studied: it is shown that a neighborhood of a planar \(n\)-gon is analytically isomorphic to \(\mathbb R^ {n-3}\times [(\mathbb R^ 3)^ {n-3}/\text{SO}(3)]\) and a neighborhood of a spatial \(n\)-gon is isomorphic to \(\mathbb R^ {2n-6}\times [(\mathbb R^ 2)^ {n-4}/\text{SO}(2)]\). A real-analytic isomorphism between \(\mathcal M_ r\) and a weighted quotient of \(n\)-copies of the quaternionic projective line \(\mathbb {HP}^ 1\) by the diagonal PSL(2, \(\mathbb H\))-action is established. The authors generalize the Gel\('\)fand-MacPherson correspondence to more general complex Grassmannians and to the quaternionic context and show that \(\mathcal M_ r\) may be realized as a quotient of the quaternionic Grassmannian Gr\(_{\mathbb H}(2, n)\) by the action of the group Sp\((1)^ n\). Also, they give analogues of the Gel\('\)fand-Tsetlin coordinates on the space of quaternionic Hermitian matrices and briefly describe generalized action-angle coordinates on \(\mathcal M_ r\). One of the major results of the paper relates the space \(\mathcal M_ r\) with a fixed point set of an involution on the Mumford quotient Gr\(_{\mathbb C}(2,4)^ n/\text{SL}(4,\mathbb C)\).