Confined elasticae and the buckling of cylindrical shells (Q2240124)

In this paper the author studies the minimal elastic energy for curves of prescribed length embedded into the unit disk in two dimensions. It is trivial that, when the curve's length is less than \(2\pi\), then the minimizer is a straight line segment. However, for curves with length greater than \(2\pi\), then a straight line segment will not fit anymore, hence the curve has to buckle, and the behavior of the minimizer is significant more complicated. For length constraints of the form \(2\pi+\mathrm{d}t\), \(\mathrm{d}t\ll1\), the author shows convergence to a fourth-order obstacle-type problem with integral constraint on the real line, which is then solved. From the solution, it is shown that the energy expansion scales like \(2\pi + \Theta \mathrm{d}t^{1/2}+o(\mathrm{d}t^{1/2})\) when the curve has length \(2\pi+\mathrm{d}t\), and then it is determined that the first-order coefficient is \(\Theta\approx 37\). More precisely, the elastic energy of a curve \(\gamma\), which is the analogue of the Willmore energy for surfaces, is defined as \[ \mathcal{W}(\gamma) =\int_\gamma \kappa^2 \mathrm{d}\mathcal{H}^1, \] where \(\kappa\) denotes the curvature, and \(\mathcal{H}^1\) is the Hausdorff one-measure. This problem is the lower-dimensional variant of the one considered by \textit{S. Müller} and \textit{M. Röger} in [J. Differ. Geom. 97, No. 1, 109--139 (2014; Zbl 1296.53127)]: minimize the Willmore energy among all surfaces embedded in the 3D unit ball with prescribed area \(S>0\). For this problem, it has been proven in [loc. cit.] that \[ \tag{1} \limsup_{S\to \infty} \inf_{|\Sigma|=S} |\mathcal{W}(\Sigma)-S| <\infty,\qquad \inf_{|\Sigma|=S} \mathcal{W}(\Sigma)=S \Longleftrightarrow S\in 4\pi \mathbb{Z}, \] and there exist constants \(c,C>0\) and \(\mathrm{d}t_0>0\) such that \[ \tag{2} 4\pi + c\mathrm{d}t^{1/2} \le \inf_{|\Sigma|=S} \mathcal{W}(\Sigma) \le 4\pi + C\mathrm{d}t^{1/2}\qquad \text{for all }\mathrm{d}t <\mathrm{d}t_0. \] The author shows that such estimates carry to the case of one-dimensional curves embedded in a two-dimensional unit disk: for curves with length \(2\pi+\mathrm{d}t\), \(\mathrm{d}t\ll1\), the author shows that \[ \tag{3} \inf_\gamma \mathcal{W}(\gamma) = 2\pi + \Theta \mathrm{d}t^{1/2}+o(\mathrm{d}t^{1/2}),\qquad \mathrm{d}t\to 0, \] with \[ \Theta = \inf \bigg\{ \int_\mathbb{R}|\phi''|^2 \mathrm{d} x: \phi\in C_c^\infty (\mathbb{R}), \ \phi\ge 0 ,\ \int_\mathbb{R} \frac{|\phi'|^2 }{2} -\phi \mathrm{d} x =1\bigg\} , \] which is the analogue of (2). For curves with large length, the author shows that \[ \tag{4} \limsup_{L\to \infty} \frac{\inf_\gamma \mathcal{W}(\gamma)-L}{\sqrt{L}} <\infty , \] which is the analogue of (1). For the case of one-dimensional curves embedded in a three-dimensional unit ball, the author shows a similar result: there exist constants \(1<C\le 9/2\) and \(\mathrm{d}t_0>0\) such that \[ \tag{5} 2\pi + \mathrm{d}t \le \inf_{\gamma} \mathcal{W}(\gamma) \le 2\pi + C\mathrm{d}t\qquad \text{for all }\mathrm{d}t <\mathrm{d}t_0, \] which is the analogue of (2), and \[ \limsup_{L\to \infty} \inf_\gamma |\mathcal{W}(\gamma) -L| <\infty. \]