The Cauchy-Riemann strain functional for Legendrian curves in the 3-sphere (Q2210733)

Let us identify the \(3\)-sphere with the hyperquadric \(\mathcal{S}\subset \mathbb{CP}^2\) given by the equation \(\langle\mathbf{z},\mathbf{z}\rangle=0\), where the pseudo-Hermitian inner product \(\langle-,-\rangle\) of \(\mathbb{C}^3\) is defined as \[\langle\mathbf{z},\mathbf{w}\rangle=\sqrt{-1}\,(\bar{z}^1 w^3 - \bar{z}^3 w^1)+\bar{z}^2 w^2\,.\] The space \(\mathcal{S}\) is endowed with a Cauchy-Riemann structure, obtained as the annihilator of a contact structure \(\zeta\). This allows to define a Legendrian curve as a smooth immersion \(\gamma:I\to \mathcal{S}\) tangent to \(\zeta\), for some \(I\subset \mathbb{R}\). The subject of Sections 2 and 3 is to present basic results about \(\mathcal{S}\) and Legendrian curves. In particular, the strain density and the stress tensor of a Legendrian curve \(\gamma:I\to \mathcal{S}\) are defined in terms of a normalised lift \(\Gamma:I\to \mathbb{C}^3\setminus\{0\}\). In Section 4, the article turns to the proof of Theorem A, which states that \(\gamma\) has zero stress tensor if and only if it is critical for the total strain functional (defined in terms of a variation of the integral of the strain density). Next, a class of generic Legendrian curves with zero stress tensor and an additional periodic invariant, the cr-tensor, is studied in Section 5. These curves, called \textit{strings}, have their cr-tensor that is completely determined by two parameters \((m,\ell)\in (0,1)\times (0,\infty)\). It is proved that a string is closed if and only if the pair \((m,\ell)\) satisfies some conditions which include the rationality of their image under the \textit{period map} \((\Theta_2,\Theta_3)\). Note that the cr-tensor and the period map are defined in terms of \((m,\ell)\) using elliptic functions. The whole of Section 6 is devoted to Theorem B, which gives a one-to-one correspondence between equivalence classes of closed strings and rational points in a domain \(\mathcal{M}\). The proof is technical and relies on studying the period map. The last main statement about closed strings, Theorem C, is proved in Section 6. In particular, it is shown that two integers \((\mathrm{l}_1,\mathrm{l}_2)\), which are obtained from linear combinations of the image under the period map of the pair \((m,\ell)\) characterising \(\gamma\), are the linking numbers of \(\gamma\) with the symmetry axes. The paper finishes with Section 7, where several examples of closed strings are depicted.