Length structures on manifolds with continuous Riemannian metrics (Q2353155)

The author studies minimal regularity conditions imposed on the Riemannian metric to bypass the lack of differentiability of the exponential map in the usual analysis of length-minimizing curves. The main result asserts that, for continuous Riemannian metrics and for the class of absolutely continuous curves (in the classical sense), the usual length of the curve, the length of the curve defined by polygonal approximations, and the length of the curve as the integral of the metric derivative, are the same. The paper is written very clearly and the proofs are transparent.